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“I’m really nervous this time about the release of my new album,” Catherine Anne Davies – aka Welsh artist, producer and music-maker, The Anchoress – tells us.
“Partly because the industry is so different, it’s hard to not feel like a content creator at times. At the end of the day, I like making records, not videos.”
The cultural landscape that Catherine’s new album, As We Once Were, will be released into this August has significantly changed since her debut Confessions of a Romance Novelist came out more than ten years ago.
Since then, life has progressed for Catherine too, now navigating the challenges of modern music distribution and the unquenchable thirst for content that comes from social media while also becoming a parent.
Although initially unsure how to process these life changes within her music, it was the discovery of a cassette with her grandmother’s voice that lit the creative sparks under what became this new album.
“This was the key that unlocked the record, I suddenly realised that the thing I’d been resisting – writing about being a mother – actually informed this album,” Catherine explains. “I realised I was actually exploring connections between the generations and many of the songs ended up being a conversation between my gran, mum, me and my daughter.”
When Catherine initially talks about gearing up to construct her new record, it’s clear it was something she’d initially been avoiding rather than relishing. Having her daughter meant that Catherine’s previously full-on workflow had to be replaced by an approach where she could only spend a limited amount of time in the studio. This was different to the more immersive recording sessions that powered her 2021 album, The Art of Losing.
“Versions [an album of reinterpretations of other artist’s music] was a release that came in 2023 and was something I could dip in and out of as the songs were already written,” she says. “It was quite daunting to approach a new studio album, figuring out my process and how my working hours were curtailed in ways they’d never been before. I was also concerned about finding the time for ideas to percolate and ingest enough of the world outside of being a parent that was worth exploring in my music.”
Catherine might have not known the direction of a potential collection of new songs but she was clear that writing a record about motherhood was something she was keen to avoid.
“I always start my records not knowing how they are going to take shape, I just try things out, then halfway through you get an epiphany and that’s what happened here,” she says. “I came across a tape at my mum’s house with my grandmother’s voice on it that we’d been looking for for years.”
“I got it back to the studio, the tape was chewed up and I spent a week working on trying to recover the audio. At first, it was something I was doing for my mum but then it also helped give shape to the album too.”
Sonically, the new record represents an evolution for Catherine. While there are nods to her previous output, she’s experimented more with synths and unexpected musical styles.
“There’s a song on the album called Hand to the Tide, it has a math rock solo on it, which people might not be expecting,” she states. “I’ve leaned deeply into the corners of the world I’m known for within my sonic palette.”
Elsewhere, there are field recordings and synth textures alongside her grandmother’s voice too. At the heart of As We Once Were is a desire to share personal experiences that resonate with others.
“It’s very important that this record didn’t just mean something to me, that it could speak to others and the album’s title rests on this,” says Catherine.
“We have to accept that we are constantly changing and evolving, it’s something that is relevant to us all. This is what interests me as an artist; having these conversations that are bigger than me.”
Alongside discovering the tape, Catherine also managed to gain access to The Townshend Studio at the University of West London in Ealing. This studio harbours synths belonging to The Who’s Pete Townshend who decided that he’d prefer his collection to be accessible to a new generation of music-makers rather than being stored away in a dusty museum.
“His synths are now housed in this purpose-built space and I was really lucky to have the chance to go and play with this kit, it was living the dream for me and unlocked the record,” Catherine explains.
“There’s always a technical aspect to my music and I wanted to explore what I could with these synths. Yes, they’ve been owned and used by a genius but I wanted to move beyond that and try and find something new with them.”
Catherine has her own collection of vintage synths but rarely had the opportunity to work with a modular setup. She cites the ARP Model 2500, a modular synth designed to rival Moog systems as an important piece of kit.
“I spent hours trying to get a great sound out of it,” Catherine says. “The synths I have from the seventies and eighties have pre-built in patches so they are plug and play to a certain extent. With Townshend’s synths, you have to really work to get anything usable which is challenging but also means you can come up with something completely unique.”
The Moog System 35 also features on album single, Throw Over Your Man, providing a unique texture to the track which Catherine believes she’d never be able to replicate.
“This is something we’ve lost, this idea of one-off moments in the studio,” she states. “Now everything is recordable and can be rediscovered but there was so much serendipity in the process. It put me in a playful mindset and reminded me of how I started production – it allowed me to rediscover my love of the recording process.”
As a guitarist and songwriter, Pete Townshend has been behind some of rock music’s most memorable moments from performing at Woodstock with The Who to the bombastic ambitions of rock operas including Tommy. Unsurprisingly, his work has left a huge impression on Catherine.
“It was a playground to delve into although the first time I walked in, I cried as I was so overwhelmed,” she says. “Partly by the beauty of the instruments but also the weight of history, Quadrophenia is one of my favourite pieces of music. To have my hands on the same gear that he used was almost a little bit much at times.”
As We Once Were features four guest vocalists, the most an Anchoress record has ever had. Having happened upon a playful creative process, Catherine was happy to invite composer Hannah Peel, long-term creative sparring partner James Dean Bradfield from the Manic Street Preachers alongside artists Eaves Wilder and Gwenno to work with her.
“Hannah has become a great friend and James almost has to be on every record I make,” Catherine says. “Eaves is a young artist whose voice fitted perfectly for the track Damsels, and she’s the daughter of Caitlin Moran so the intergenerational theme fit there. I became friends with Gwenno after asking her for advice on balancing touring and motherhood.”
Rather than completely opening up the creative process, Catherine is still keen to pursue the singular vision of The Anchoress. She sees these guests as “The cherry on top of a cake that is already baked”.
“I still enjoy being totally autonomous and in control, so this felt more like bringing someone to the party to join in,” she says. “Collaborating for the sake of it doesn’t always push you further forward – sometimes it can lead to compromising which isn’t creatively satisfying. But I’m also no longer apologising for being a bit of a control freak. Success these days is now hard to gauge, you have to enjoy as much of the process as you can.”
As We Once Were took shape at various studios alongside the Townshend base in Ealing. Catherine spent time at Door to the River, a studio owned by the Manic Street Preachers alongside her own Black Lodge studio base, a space designed around sound.
“I’ve been really lucky to be able to build a bespoke space and make it as multi-purpose as possible,” she states. “The only thing I can’t do here is live drums but I have a huge desk with all my outboard gear on it with my synths racked up. As a parent, my working hours are nine until three so I go in and get on with it. I’m amazed at how much time I’ve wasted in the past.”
Previously, Catherine joined the Scottish rock band Simple Minds as a touring member of their live group, a role that put her in a position where she could afford to kit out the space. Named due to the colour of its outside (as well as nodding to David Lynch and Twin Peaks) the studio is an ongoing work in process.
“My dear friend Chris York [a legendary live music promoter] donated some of his gear to me just before he passed away too,” she says. “It was really difficult, I didn’t want to touch it or rack it up as it felt like I was acknowledging he wasn’t here any more, so that was hard.
“Chris was a really important part of my journey, encouraging me to carry on. The same with the Manics, they always know when I need a bit of a boost and they’ve helped me create this amazing space.”
As Catherine gears up to release the album, she’s also busy with other projects, producing and mixing for others alongside launching a new podcast exploring motherhood in today’s music industry and lecturing at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance. This latter side to her work means she feels plugged into sounds and artists outside her usual sphere of influence.
“Lecturing takes me into a space where I’m constantly bombarded with new inspiration and work I wouldn’t have come across otherwise,” she says. “My students might not realise they’re inspiring me, I feel excited by new sounds as opposed to being stuck in my comfort zone.”
While the industry has matured, so has Catherine’s career and it’s now made up of various strands. Still, there has been one constant – her infatuation with great sound.
“I’m obsessed with making the best possible sonic sounding record I can,” she says. “I’m not interested in compromising the quality of my output, which means I don’t make cheap records and it takes me a long time too – because to make a record as layered and as complex as what I want to do, there is an inherent cost.
“I keep ploughing through as I believe it’s important to make art of a certain quality and hope that enough people agree with me. It’s been really heartening to hear that people appreciate this, the effort has been noticed.”
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