Cathy Davey is Dangerous

• 19th Aug 2004

Fresh from supporting Graham Coxon and Supergrass on their UK tours, Cathy Davey is doing a few headline dates of here own to promote the debut album release of ‘Something Ilk’ on the 23rd August.

Monday 23rd August -The Fudge Club, Liverpool
Tuesday 24th August – The Orange Tree, Nottingham
Wednesday 25th August – The Glee Club, Birmingham
Thursday 26th August – The Consortium, Bournemouth

Something Ilk was recorded with Blur producer Ben Hillier at Rockfield Studio during the 2003 heat wave. Davey and her band experimented with natural sounds and made the most of Hillier’s selection of pre-war mics and old synths. Strange noises lurk underneath many of the songs, the result of recording with the studio doors wide open and the inclusion of some curious instrumentation. As far as Davey is concerned it only adds to her songs. ‘Noises and mistakes give character’, she says, ‘They make your songs sound alive. The result is a record that doesn’t sound like anything else in your collection.’

Cathy Davey isn¹t your typical singer songwriter. Far from it. Bearing in mind its usual connotations, she finds the prospect of being placed in that category distinctly unsettling. It¹s a label Davey whole-heartedly rejects. ‘The whole thing is so po-faced. It gives me the willies’, she says. ‘I’m not interested in being self-analytical or fey because it makes me feel like a knob.