Catherine Anne Davies, better known by the stage name the Anchoress, is a Welsh-born multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and author.
Davies formed the Anchoress in 2013. The Anchoress's debut album Confessions of a Romance Novelist, was released on 15 January 2016 via Kscope. 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.
In July 2016, the Anchoress supported and duetted with Manic Street Preachers at the Eden Project and again supported the band in June 2017, before duetting on "Little Baby Nothing" at the Q Awards in October 2017. She supported Simple Minds on the UK leg of their Acoustic Tour in May/June 2017. In 2017, Davies co-wrote and engineered 5 tracks on long-term collaborator Paul Draper's debut solo album Spooky Action. She performed with Draper on his 6-date UK tour in September 2017 and appears on keyboards and vocals on the live album Spooky Action: Live at the Scala.
From 2014 until July 2018, Davies performed in Simple Minds, contributing additional guitar, vocals and keyboards. She met Jim Kerr, the lead singer and one of the principal songwriters in Simple Minds, when both were in the Dark Flowers, a band assembled to record a 2013 album of songs based on a Sam Shepard book. She has also performed live with Ed Harcourt at Glastonbury Festival,[16] as well as Martha Wainwright.
