Women Make Music: The Anchoress
The Anchoress is the moniker of Welsh multi-instrumentalist Catherine Anne Davies.
Funding will be used to contribute towards touring costs for a UK support tour of concert halls.
Her debut album, ‘Confessions of A Romance Novelist’ , was released in 2016 to widespread critical acclaim. The album 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.
Mojo described Davies as being in possession of “a devastatingly powerful voice”. The Observer called it “a blackly witty break up album…compelling”, while PROG magazine described the record as “Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love updated for the 21st century”.
The genre-hopping, expansive production of Confessions of a Romance Novelist draws on influences as far and wide as Prince, Tori Amos, Roxy Music, The Carpenters, and David Bowie. On the album, Catherine plays a variety of instruments, including piano, guitar, flute, omnichord, mellotron, wurlitzer, glockenspiel, and celeste, as well as sampling church bells, and an orchestra of typewriters.
Alongside creating music as “The Anchoress”, Catherine joined the Simple Minds touring line-up in 2015 (when she first appeared behind the keyboard in the video for ‘Honest Town’). The Anchoress has also recently supported and duetted with fellow Welshmen, the Manic Street Preachers. She will be opening for the UK leg of the Simple Minds Acoustic Tour in May/June 2017, with a stripped-down version of her album.