The Anchoress is the work of Welsh baroque-pop songwriter and producer Catherine Anne Davies.

The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist has released two studio albums, including Confessions of a Romance Novelist (2016) and The Art of Losing (2021).

She has teamed up with Bernard Butler to record their shaped In Memory of My Feelings (2020) LP, and duetted with James Dean Bradfield of the 2018 Manic Street Preachers singles “Dylan & Caitlin”.

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Artist Bio

Welsh songwriter and producer Catherine Anne Davies aka The Anchoress, has found a room of her own beneath pop’s playground, in the basement of prog’s castle, creating her one-woman sonic vision.

Whilst her debut won awards and critical acclaim, the follow-up, The Art of Losing (released in March 2021) successfully transformed those wall-to-wall critical plaudits into a Top 40 position in the album charts, as well as the #1 spot on iTunes.

Produced and written by Davies, The Art of Losing was created in the aftermath of several years of huge personal loss, after the untimely death of her father, undergoing treatment for cervical cancer, and navigating baby loss, the record follows Dylan Thomas’ instruction to “rage against the dying of the light” - and there is nothing sonically “gentle” about its enquiry.

The album tackles death and trauma with a defiant optimism, firmly concerned with how to find purpose in the midst of grief: “Was there some purpose to losing my mind?”, she asks on the title track. At the emotional centre of the album is ‘5am’ - a brutally simple song that looks at the visceral physical impact of sexual assault, centred around Davies’ own assault as a teenager.

It is a a sonically ambitious album that is helmed by Davies on sole production duties - a move she said felt both natural and necessary after having a “side hussle” in engineering/producing for others. The Art of Losing also features guest appearances from James Dean Bradfield (Manics) as well as legendary drummer Sterling Campbell (David Bowie, Duran Duran).

As a voracious devourer of words and music, the concept of her Prog Award-winning debut married her love of literature with a dark sense of humour. The Observer called it "a compelling & blackly witty break up album", while PROG hailed it as "Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love updated for the 21st century". It was named amongst the Guardian critics’ Albums of the Year, won HMV’s Welsh Album of the Year, Best Newcomer at the PROG awards, and a nomination for Welsh Music Prize.

It also caught the ear of various musicians including Robert Smith of The Cure (who personally invited her to play at his Meltdown Festival) and perhaps - most significantly - her childhood heroes, Manic Street Preachers.

Davies’ diverse talents as an arranger and multi-instrumentalist have been put to use across a range of other projects, most recently via the collaborative album In Memory of My Feelings with Bernard Butler and duetting with the Manic Street Preachers on Resistance Is Futile. She also brought a new generation of ears to Simple Minds, where she spent much of the last four years recording and touring on keys/vocals, before departing in 2019.

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