catherine anne davies, è inglese, di Londra, è polistrumentista, suona tutto dalla chitarra all’ organo, banjo mandolino ma più che altro catherine (e la chiamo così perchè è quasi un anno che la “conosco”) ha la voce, una voce che richiama l’ombra, quella vera, profonda e oscura, gloomy direbbe lei.non ha tanto fuori, ha un ep, bellissimo, quattro tracce che io vi direi che è una delle cose più profonde e di impatto che abbia sentito da tanto, e cos’altro ha lei, storie, di disperazione e dolore, senza salvezza, senza redenzionepura e semplice catherine anne davies
listening to your ep i really appreciated your mood, gloomy, desperate but remembering a mazzy star’ verse i can say “some kind of light into your darkness”. what do you think about it?
CAD: Yes, i definitely strive for the ‘light’ in the darkness’. even if it’s just the process of writing the song itself, which can be like an act of catharsis. i think it’s important to take away something more than just immersing yourself in a dark or depressing situation. i guess that’s probably what motivates me to write some of the songs in the first instance. I think what Proust said of books,should equally apply to songs -”Real books should be the offspring not of daylight and casual talk but of darkness and silence” (- Marcel Proust)
your writing is so charged with daily emotions, it grows with your music, is this the first point from where you leave writing a new song? or are just thoughts put together?
CAD: the songs tend to emerge fully formed, mostly driven by strong emotions. Where the songs don’t have an autobiographical inspiration, they tend to come from a really strong image or metaphor I’ve found somewhere (for instance “The Heart is a Lonesome Hunter”) Occasionally, they go through a few mutations: “The Congregation” started with a simple musical idea; so simple perhaps that it could have gone anywhere, but then a verse appeared from nowhere, about someone who killed themselves by lying down on a railway track. so then, the next verse (about Virginia Woolf) seemed to follow naturally. but the song ended somewhere completely different.
you live in london, are you struggling against the “indie hype”, because your music is so unconventional or are you feeling comfortable with the musical spaces you can afford to?
CAD: thankfully, no-one’s going to try to force me into the role of “the next Pete Doherty” or whoever, so there’s time to develop without being in the spotlight one minute and discarded the next. there also seem to be just enough people making a similar kind of music (I’ve been billed as “folk-noir” and played various “new folk” nights) without there being an oversaturation.
what is your current listenings? is there any artist whom you’d like to workwith?
CAD: right at the moment, the Devics, and the new Fiona Apple album. I’d work with Tom Waits; maybe get him to bark over one of my songs.
which are your best musical whispers?
CAD: has Patrick Wolf made it to Italy yet? He’s the male Kate Bush. Jandek – he whispers through my walls at night…
which songs would you cover? something or someone near to your musical tastes or something different?
CAD: Kylie Minogue, “Confide in Me” – without a trace of irony – she’s a childhood heroine of mine. So far, I’ve covered Nina Simone (Wild is the Wind), Tracy Chapman (Baby, Can I hold You?), and Nick Drake (“Black Eyed Dog”). I was supposed to be recording a cover each month this year, but got stuck on David Bowie’s “Fantastic Voyage” and then decided to spend a little more time on my PhD…
did you ever wonder to cover a folk/country song?which one?
CAD: “In My Hour of Darkness” by Gram Parsons & Emmylou Harris. It’s one of the eariest country-rock songs, and oddly jaunty in spite of the lyrics. I haven’t decided whether to make it really dark, or let it make me a bit more upbeat…!
lei è catherine anne davies di donne così nella musica attuale non ce ne sono mai abbastanza
qui il suo sitoqui la sua pagina su myspace dove potete ascoltare tutto l’ep
