Welsh multi-instrumentalist and producer The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies) announces new album As We Once Were with the release of new single I Had a Baby Not A Lobotomy, out now on digital platforms. The track premiered on BBC Radio 6 Music with an exclusive live interview with Steve Lamacq on Monday night. Davies describes the track “a tongue in cheek litany of all the stupid things people said to me when I had a baby”.
Set to a technicolour vintage synth soundtrack – think John Grant and Depeche Mode meets Stranger Things – the single also features guest vocals from Mercury Music Prize nominated Welsh-Cornish musician Gwenno. This track is first taste from Davies' forthcoming third studio album, As We Once Were, which is set to be released on August 7th via her new home with ethically-minded label Last Night From Glasgow. The LP is available to pre-order now on a stunning range of vinyl, CD, cassette and digital formats.
Self-produced by the three-times Music Producers’ Guild nominated Davies at Black Lodge and Townshend Studios - and mixed by Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild), the new album was developed over the past two years, with Davies stockpiling musical ideas after the birth of her daughter, “diving backwards into the past as a means to go forwards”.
She describes the album as “a conversation across four generations of women”, born out of the collision of two moments from the recent past: being given access to work with all of Pete Townshend’s collection of vintage analogue synths at the Townshend Studios in West London against the backdrop of the birth of her first child after numerous losses, and
the discovery of her grandmother’s voice on a long lost cassette tape in her
mother’s attic:
“As I pulled on the threads I began on a journey into my genetic past and our cultural past in order to piece myself back together in something akin to Japanese kintsugi: a symbolic process which teaches us that through healing and transformation we can create something more valuable than before. Whilst, in the words of the title track of the album ,“We can’t ever be the same as we once were”, kintsugi shows us how to value our scars as a symbol of strength and resilience, reminding us that imperfection is not a weakness.”
The Anchoress also announces a one-off album launch show at London’s legendary 100 Club – the oldest independent venue in the world with a parent-friendly early curfew of 10pm. Her previous Top 40 second album The Art of Losing garnered wall-to-wall critical plaudits, being named an album of the year by The Sunday Times, The Line of Best Fit, Mail on Sunday, Prog, and hailed as “one of my favourite records of the year” by Sir Elton John.