THE ANCHORESS WINS PRS WRITER PRODUCER AWARD


”I’m thrilled to be named as one of the recipients of the PRS FoundationWriter Producer award.

Anyone who has been following my work over the past few years will know what it means to me to be acknowledged for my work in this field. It really feels like a tidal shift is finally happening where it’s no longer a novelty to see women in engineering and production roles in the studio, and not just behind the microphone.

I want to say a huge thank you to all the generous people I’ve had the pleasure to work with and learn from over the years.”

THE ANCHORESS APPEARS AT ROBERT SMITH'S MELTDOWN

The Anchoress performed a full band show at the Royal Festival Hall as part of Robert Smith’s Meltdown Festival at the Southbank Centre. As well as performing her own solo show, she late rejoined the Manic Street Preachers onstage for two songs.

NME report on the Meltdown show with Manic Street Preachers:

http://www.nme.com/news/music/manic-street-preachers-cover-cures-in-between-days-anchoress-glorious-meltdown-show-2341388

THE ANCHORESS PERFORMS WITH THE MANICS AT WEMBLEY & MEN ARENA

The Anchoress appeared as a special guest with the Manic Street Preachers at Wembley & Manchester Arena, performing “Little Baby Nothing, “Your Love Alone”, and “Dylan & Caitlin” for two nights as part of the band’s arena tour.

She said:

“There's no words to explain what it feels like to perform with your childhood heroes. Thank you to everyone for the lovely reception…”

DYLAN & CAITLIN - THE ANCHORESS RECORDS DUETS WITH MANIC STREET PREACHERS ON THEIR NEW ALBUM

THE ANCHORESS DUETS WITH MANIC STREET PREACHERS
ON NEW TRACK ‘DYLAN & CAITLIN’ & ANNOUNCES MELTDOWN PERFORMANCE
 
The Anchoress duets on a brand new track with the fellow Welsh rockers Manic Street Preachers.

‘Dylan & Caitlin” is taken from the Manics’ forthcoming album ‘Resistance Is Futile’ and documents the stormy relationship between poet Dylan Thomas and his wife Caitlin, with The Anchoress taking guest vocal duties alongside James Dean Bradfield.

The Anchoress will also play this year’s 25th Meltdown Festival at the invitation of The Cure’s Robert Smith and will appear at the Royal Festival Hall in London on the 19th June 2018.
 
Speaking about their duet, the Manic Street Preachers’ Nicky Wire explains: “The story itself rolls through their relationship – drinking, fighting and ended up broken by America.  The conversational nature of the lyrics lent themselves to a duet so we asked Catherine (aka the Anchoress) to provide the female perspective. She’s a hugely talented kindred spirit”.  ‘Dylan and Caitlin’ follows in the tradition of the Manics working with guest vocalists which started with Tracey Lords on their debut album track ‘Little Baby Nothing’ and has taken in Ian McCulloch (‘Some Kind of Nothingness’), Nina Persson (‘Your Love Alone’) and Richard Hawley (‘Rewind The Film’). The duet appears on the Manics 13th studio album ‘Resistance Is Futile’, which is released on April 13th via Columbia.

Stream and buy the track here where you can also watch a special acoustic live version of the song- http://smarturl.it/DylanCaitlin?IQid=FB

 

THE ANCHORESS DUETS WITH MANIC STREET PREACHERS AT THE Q AWARDS

I was so honoured to be asked to duet with the Manic Street Preachers on ‘Little Baby Nothing’ at the Q Awards last week (where they received the Q Inspiration award).

As a lifelong Manics fan they've been been a huge inspiration to me and to play with the band again was really a dream come true.

Check out some fan shot footage of the song below: https://youtu.be/dQnYI7BtqdY

THE ANCHORESS BBC QUAY SESSIONS

BBC QUAY SESSIONS

It's been an exciting few weeks here, preparing for the forthcoming run of support shows with Simple Minds. I also flew up to Glasgow for my first live TV appearance on STV (watch back here 28 minutes into the programme) and for a special filming of the BBC Quay Sessions. It was so nice to meet a few of the lucky ticket ballot winners after the show and I appreciate how far some of you travelled to be there!

You can now listen back to highlights from the BBC Session, recorded live last week against a beautiful Glasgow sunset on Pacific Quay. The Anchoress' session starts 1h05 into the programme, with a 45 minute set of acoustic versions of songs from the album & interview.

Listen back here:

 

The special 45 minute BBC session, featuring acoustic versions of songs from 'Confessions of a Romance Novelist', was filmed for BBC Scotland with a small string section. Selected tracks are now available to watch on the iPlayer.

Watch 'Long Year' on the iPlayer here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051y54m

Watch 'Confessions of a Romance Novelist' on the iPlayer here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p051y58s


Photos by Simone Byrne

The Anchoress live at the BBC

Watch my BBC performance of the David Bowie classic 'Andy Warhol' with Simple Minds which I performed as part of the BBC special last week. Thanks so much to Jim and Charlie for inviting me to be part of their special night. You can watch the whole performance here.

 

Welsh Music Prize Nomination

I'm incredibly honoured that my debut album has been nominated for this year's Welsh Music Prize. The album gestated over a number of years in the studio but the ideas and influences behind The Anchoress stem all the way back to my childhood. I grew up with a real sense of the importance of music to the Welsh identity and my family's history. As the 1967 poem by Brian Harris, says, it's a privilege to be born with this "music in your blood / And with poetry in your soul", and a privilege of another kind to have the album recognised among so many other great offerings from the motherland.

Read the full story in the NME here: http://www.nme.com/news/various-artists/96272

Best Newcomer at the Prog Awards

It was a great honour to be nominated in the best newcomer category at this year's Prog awards and an even greater surprise to win! It was a memorable evening for so many reasons, including getting to chat with the legendary Andy Summers about how we'd both recorded using the same vintage Neve mic pres in Hugh Padgham's studio, being seated at a table of the veritable great and the good of the Prog world, and comparing preferred pianos with Iamthemorning. I'm so grateful to everyone who voted for me and huge thanks again to the magazine for their support of the album. X

Confessions on vinyl

I'm pleased to announce the reissue of Confessions of a Romance Novelist on double heavyweight vinyl and a "second edition" 2 CD gatefold edition, to be released on October 14th 2016 via Kscope.

The vinyl version of the album will be presented as a gatefold sleeve 180g heavyweight double vinyl with lyric bags and 4 brand new acoustic versions, featuring string arrangements from Gillian Wood and guest vocals from Paul Draper. The expanded 2nd edition 2CD gatefold digipack also includes 5 new acoustic versions on CD2 and a 20 page booklet.

You can now pre-order signed bundles with a limited edition signed postcard and art print. These signed editions are ONLY available at The Anchoress official store and are strictly limited in number.

BUY HERE:

http://theanchoress.tmstor.es

The Anchoress duets with the Manic Street Preachers at Eden Project

The band & I had a great time opening the show for the Manics this past weekend at the Eden Project. It was also an enormous honour to be asked to duet on "Little Baby Nothing". Thank you to Dom Gourlay for capturing this special shot of me and JDB and to all the MSP fans for being so welcoming. Couldn't have asked for a better audience and setting. Hope to see you at a show soon!

You can see the performance of Little Baby Nothing here: https://youtu.be/tC2vOStHBbQ

New video directed by Annick Wolfers

The brand new video for the next single, Doesn't Kill You (above), was premiered last week on Gigwise. Charlie Gilmour (son of David Gilmour) stars as my androgynous alter ego in this Bowie-inspired short film, which was styled by costume designer Natasha Lawes. Directed by Annick Wolfers (who has previously worked with Vivienne Westwood and Vogue Italia), it narrates what I have described as a “metaphorical battle between the super-ego and the id” but in reality was more about me not pushing Charlie around too hard as he's a mixed martial arts expert..

I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.

Watch the video here now.

The Anchoress to support Manic Street Preachers

I'm thrilled to announce that I will be supporting the Manic Street Preachers on July 9th at the Eden Project in Cornwall. It's such a huge honour to be asked by Mr. Nicky Wire who was something of a surrogate teacher for me growing up. The Manics are a band that completely changed and shaped my life, turning me into a book-bothering library fiend who was the first in my family to go to university... All because of a rock and roll band. I feel I can safely retire now knowing that my 12 year old self would feel satisfied with how things turned out! Hope to see some of you there.