Welsh multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies) will be release her second album in March 2021.
A taster for the album first single ‘Show Your Face’ is available now, a Depeche Mode-flavoured retort to toxic masculinity that features guitar from Manic Street Preachers’ James Dean Bradfield, who also sings a duet on the album. Drums are courtesy of from Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran).
The new single weaves its dark synth magic following up on her sonically audacious 2016 debut, ‘Confessions of A Romance Novelist’, which was named amongst the Guardian critics’ Albums of the Year, nominated for the Welsh Music Prize, named HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year, and won Best Newcomer at the PROG awards.
Written and produced by Davies, ‘The Art of Losing’ navigates the consequences of death and grief and how we make something from the losses in our lives. The album follows Dylan Thomas’ instruction to “rage against the dying of the light” and explores how to find purpose in the midst of grief:
“Was there some purpose to losing my mind?”, she asks on the album’s title track: “What did you learn when life was unkind..?”
Most recently came the release of her collaborative album ‘In Memory of My Feelings’ with Bernard Butler (on Pete Paphides’ label Needle Mythology), she dueted and toured with the Manic Street Preachers on their thirteenth album ‘Resistance Is Futile’ and was invited by The Cure’s Robert Smith to perform at his Meltdown Festival. She also toured with Simple Minds before departing in 2019 after playing over 400 shows with the band.
The ‘Art of Losing’ is released on 5 March 2021 via Kscope
