Two and a half years on from her stunning second album, ‘Tales of Silversleeve’, Ireland’s favourite songstress Cathy Davey returns with the follow-up today, May 7 and will play Kilkenny next Wednesday.
Plenty of water has passed under the bridge since the release of Silversleeve but new album, ‘The Nameless’ finds Davey flourishing; the sound big and dramatic, the tone emotional and the voice mystical.
With the praise that followed her previous album around still ringing in her ears and immersed in a tour to support the album, Davey took a new approach to her next project, retreating to France for a month in search of the seclusion and independence she craved to concentrate on her song-writing.
Fitting what equipment she could into her suitcase, she settled in a quiet French house and set about penning the songs that would make up her third album.
According to Davey, it was not a conscientious choice to seek out a new environment for her song-writing, simply an attempt to escape the hustle bustle of home, where she risked being disturbed by people dropping in and picking up tour equipment.
“It was just to write,” she says. “I wanted to get away and not have any interruptions, so I decided to try and find a cheapish apartment in France and settle down and write. Plus, I don’t speak French so it was easier to achieve that isolation.
“I think the main benefit of that was that I didn’t have the usual tools of the trade.”
Conspicuous by its absence from her artillery was the singer-songwriter’s favourite weapon, the acoustic guitar.
“I had to choose what I brought with me and those limitations made it interesting. I had to pull something new out of the bag.
“I brought a mini-drumkit, a mandolin, a tin whistle, things that I could fit in my suitcase. A lot of the songs were written on the mandolin and I guess that gave them quite a folky sound.”
The album is wrought with emotion but Davey says she didn’t set out to conquer any demons and enjoyed the writing process.
“I wasn’t trying to face anything,” she says. “The writing is the great part, it is the re-recording and mixing things that is the difficult part for me.”
Despite the praise garnered by Silversleeve, Davey always felt she was fighting a losing battle trying to impress her record label, EMI. That album went on to achieve double-platinum status in Ireland and won her a Choice Music Prize nomination and a Meteor award, making her a household name along the way.
Nonetheless, the label dropped her in 2008 and Davey took it as an opportunity to gain more control over her own music. Not feeling any pressure to follow up an album that was named in the Irish Times’ list of the top 10 albums of the decade, she set about stamping her own mark on the music.
“I had the pressure of knowing my label were displeased with me. It wasn’t like I had a wonderfully successful album to live up to. No matter how many units the album sold it was still going to be disappointing to the people who had paid for it.
“There wasn’t any pressure to live up to anything. Everyone knows what labels are like and now I don’t have them there to give their tuppence.”
‘The Nameless’ will be released on her own label, Hammer Toe Records, and she is revelling in the creative freedom that has allowed her.
“The first time I got the album back I was genuinely excited,” she reveals. “I knew how much everything was and it was my own artwork. There was nobody pushing me in a direction I didn’t want to go. Releasing your own stuff is much more enjoyable.”
Former collaborator and talented musician Conor O’Brien of The Villagers returns to add guitar and drums to the album and Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy lends his voice to the mix, helping to create what could be her most assured recordings yet.
Songs like lead single ‘Little Red’, the violin-fuelled ‘Army of Tears’, and the bouncy ‘In He Comes’ reaffirm Cathy Davey as the leading purveyor of powerful indie-pop in the country.
Cathy Davey will play the Set Theatre in Kilkenny next Wednesday, May 12.
