Kurt Cobain died by his own hand April 5.
The
alternative nation’s voice was suddenly, shockingly stilled. After three years of the most popular music being an agonized scream over heavy guitars, people wanted something shinier and more upbeat. But they didn’t want to lose the overamplified six-strings and acknowledgment that life was complicated and messy.
Dookie had that in spades. Now
grunge aside and finally dominated rock culture as it threatened to in 1977. A third of these records reflected pop-punk’s commercial ascendance.
Also, three of 1994’s best punk albums rang with resonances of death, despite all songs having been written (in some cases)
The Art Of Losing
Marc Burrows
, March 15th, 2021 09:33
With guest vocals from James Dean Bradfield (and drumming from Sterling Campbell, it s nonetheless Catherine Anne Davies s own production skills that make her second Anchoress album so special, finds Marc Burrows
“Ouch,” sings Catherine Anne Davies, right at the starter pistol, “this is going to hurt”. Any good iconoclast knows to put their manifesto in the first line, and in her persona as The Anchoress, Davies is always iconoclastic about her own trauma.
She’s absolutely right as well.
The Art of Losing really fucking hurts. It hurts more as it goes along. The whole record is a processing plant for rage and pain, sharpening it to a point, adding the cruellest barbs and driving it into your skin. Deeper it goes, hurting more with every tap of the sonic mallet. Right through the wrists and ankles, right against the rough wood of the cross, right through the side. Every line is a thorn, a nail, the whole Lance o
Was there some purpose to losing my mind?” WHEN you’ve made an album that is full of death, loss and grief maybe it is serendipitous, Catherine Anne Davies suggests, to release it in the middle of a global pandemic. “In the past people have shied away from talking about all these things,” the singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist tells me down the line from Buckinghamshire where she’s currently shielding. “I think now we are forced to confront it every single day. Everybody knows somebody who’s been touched by Covid and we’re all being forced to think about making a will, talking about what we would like to happen if we die, in a way that I think, pre-pandemic, we just weren’t very good at.”
Album: The Anchoress - The Art of Losing | reviews, news & interviews Album: The Anchoress - The Art of Losing
Album: The Anchoress - The Art of Losing
A timely exploration of women s woes which pulls precisely no punches
by Kathryn ReillyFriday, 12 March 2021
The Anchoress: the woman behind the name – Catherine Anne Davies – is a musician first
What a very beautiful thing this is. From the off, this second album marks itself out as something most unusual. A piano-based instrumental opener ( Moon Rise ) is reprised half way through the album ( All Shall Be Well and Paris ) and at the close ( Moon: An End ) – these masterful exercises in capturing the depth of loss would be enough in themselves.
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