As We Once Were The Anchoress

• 1 Du Temps Perdu (Introduction) 01:01
• 2 Throw Over Your Man 03:54
• 3 I Had A Baby Not A Lobotomy 03:56
• 4 Damsels 03:23
• 5 As We Once Were 03:42
• 6 Happiness Don't Show Up Like It Should (Prologue) 01:55
• 7 All I Really Want Is Peace 04:00
• 8 Stop The World 05:06
• 9 Du Temps Perdu (Reprise) 00:59
• 10 What You Did 05:17
• 11 All Fall Down 05:13
• 12 Hand To The Tide 05:55
• 13 She Knows Her Place 05:07
• 14 Happiness Don't Show Up Like It Should (Epilogue) 01:30
• Total Runtime 50:58

Info for As We Once Were

As We Once Were is the third studio album from twice Welsh Music Prize nominated artist and producer The Anchoress aka Catherine Anne Davies. This new record is the long-awaited follow-up to the UK Top 40 album The Art Of Losing, which received wall-to-wall critical plaudits upon its release in 2021 and scooped up a raft of Album of The Year nods from The Sunday Times, to Prog, to the Mail on Sunday. With Sir Elton John naming it “one of my favourite records of the year” and Caitlin Moran calling it “the inadvertent, beautiful and truthful soundtrack to this moment”, it went on to sell over 10,000 physical copies via the power of word of mouth.


Featuring an all-star cast of guest vocalists, including vocals from Mercury Music Prize nominees Hannah Peel and Welsh-Cornish musician Gwenno, long-time collaborator James Dean Bradfield from Manic Street Preachers also contributes vocals and electric guitar to ‘Throw Over Your Man’ - a song inspired by the love letters between literary legends Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West - and newcomer Eaves Wilder (Secretly Canadian) duets on ‘Damsels’.

Three-times Music Producers Guild nominated Davies created the new album at Black Lodge Studios, while being given access to Pete Townshend’s collection of vintage analogue synthesisers to produce an epic 14-track widescreen exploration of the nature of time and transformation. 


Against the backdrop of the birth of her first child (after the multiple losses documented on The Art Of Losing) and the discovery of her grandmother’s voice on a long lost cassette tape in her mother’s attic, Davies found herself asking the question: “What can we build out of the past? Are we destined to be held down by it? Can we ever return to these past versions of ourselves?



Catherine Anne Davies, guitars, synthesizers, vocals, Farfisa, mellotron brass, percussion, Solina strings, upright piano, Vox Continental organ
Additional musicians:
Charlie Cawood, bass
Keir Adamson, drums
Bishi, backing vocals (track 2)
Rookes, backing vocals (track 2)
Vicky Falconer Pritchard, backing vocals (track 2)
James Dean Bradfield, vocals, guitars (track 2)
Eaves Wilder, vocals (track 3)
Gwenno Saunders, vocals (track 4)
Hannah Peel, vocals (track 11)

The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies)
Welsh producer and multi-instrumentalist The Anchoress (aka Catherine Anne Davies) returns with new music in 2025. Her two acclaimed studio albums have amassed an army of celebrity fans including The Cure’s Robert Smith, Caitlin Moran, and Elton John.

Fresh from a run of summer UK dates appearing with Manic Street Preachers, these new live dates will see her preview new music from her forthcoming new studio album (details to be announced) with a full live band.

Her trademark literate baroque songwriting mixes epic melancholic guitar anthems alongside “swaggering synth-pop” (Uncut) and “shining alt-pop from the artisan of darkness” (Record Collector).

Her Top 40 second album ‘The Art of Losing’ successfully transformed wall-to-wall critical plaudits into a Top 10 position in the UK physical charts, as well as the coveted #1 spot on iTunes. It was also named an album of the year by The Sunday Times, The Line of Best Fit, Mail on Sunday, Prog, and The Sun, and hailed as “one of my favourite records of the year” by Sir Elton John.

She has been twice nominated for the Welsh Music Prize and has previously collaborated with Manic Street Preachers, Bernard Butler and Simple Minds.

Catherine Anne Davies returns with As We Once Were - a bold, unflinching new album from one of the UK’s most distinctive voices. Landing this August via Last Night From Glasgow, the 14-track record marks her third studio release, following the Welsh Music Prize-nominated The Art Of Losing and the cult favourite Confessions Of A Romance Novelist.

As We Once Were is the long-awaited follow-up to the UK Top 40 album The Art Of Losing, which received wall-to-wall critical plaudits upon its release in 2021 and scooped up a raft of Album of The Year nods from The Sunday Times, to Prog, to the Mail on Sunday. With Sir Elton John naming it “one of my favourite records of the year” and Caitlin Moran calling it “the inadvertent, beautiful and truthful soundtrack to this moment”, it went on to sell over 10,000 physical copies via the power of pure word of mouth.


Featuring an all-star cast of guest vocalist, including vocals from Mercury Music Prize nominees Hannah Peel and Welsh-Cornish musician Gwenno, long-time collaborator James Dean Bradfield from Manic Street Preachers also contributes vocals and electric guitar to ‘Throw Over Your Man’ - a song inspired by the love letters between literary legends Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville West - and newcomer Eaves Wilder (Secretly Canadian) duets on ‘Damsels’.

Self-produced by the three-times Music Producers’ Guild nominated Davies at Black Lodge, mixed by Dave Eringa (Manic Street Preachers, Idlewild) and Mikko Gordon (The Smile, Idles) and mastered by Jon Astley (The Who, Tori Amos), the new album was developed over the past two years, with Davies stockpiling musical ideas after the birth of her daughter.

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 vintage 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 cassette tape in her mother’s loft:

“I found myself diving backwards to go forwards. Hands on the keys of synths once played by the legendary genius of Townshend, tongue in the words uttered by my grandmother, as well as those beginning to emerge from the mouth of my own young daughter. Holding a conversation across the generations, asking questions of the past as a way to propel myself forwards to a future that might look different.”

As We Once Were probes themes of loss, trauma and parenthood, and the rebirth that emerges from these experiences:

“As I pulled on these threads, I began a journey into my genetic past and our cultural past in order to piece myself back together. It became something akin to the art of Japanese kintsugi - a symbolic process which teaches us that through healing and transformation we can create something more valuable than before.”

The album announcement follows hot on the heels of the release of lead single I Had A Baby Not A Lobotomy on BBC Radio 6 Music, which premiered with an exclusive live interview with Steve Lamacq speaking about “being let loose on Pete Townshend's synths, and how tripping over a cassette tape gave rise to the new 14 track concept album about the nature of time”.

The album also arrives alongside the launch of her new podcast in May, The Milk & The Music, a series of solutions-focused conversations exploring how the music industry grapples with its "Motherhood Penalty". Forthcoming guests include MPG award winner Lau.ra, Charlotte Hatherley (Ash), and Ivor Novello nominee Gazelle Twin.

The Anchoress will play a one-off album launch show at London’s legendary 100 Club - the oldest independent venue in the world - on Saturday 22nd August to celebrate the release of the new record. The show will be an early curfew of 10pm with a parent-friendly stage time.

This album contains no booklet.