The Anchoress and James Dean Bradfield team up on new single "The Exchange"

"The Exchange" is the final taster of The Anchoress' second album before it arrives in full on Friday (12 March), and sees The Anchoress, real name Catherine Anne Davies collaborate with James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preachers.

The new song is produced by Davies and mixed by Dave Eringa. Davies says, "I was so lucky that James agreed to lend his vocal to this track. It was written as a duet that explores a toxic dynamic created by those that see people as puppets rather than as human beings. When I first pulled his vocal into the finished track I had one of those goosebump moments where you pinch yourself that one of your childhood idols is singing a song that I wrote. The power and emotion in his voice is what makes him one of my all-time favourite singers. He’s a very inquisitive and intelligent musician."

She adds, "The legend that is Sterling Campell (who played drums for David Bowie for decades) also very kindly agreed to guest on the track. He was a dream to work with and he nailed it straight away in a remote session from his studio in New York. We first met while I was touring in Australia and Sterling was also playing with the mighty B-52s. We struck up a friendship through Mario McNulty (also part of the Bowie cohort) and the rest is musical history…"

Davies says of the JJ Eringa-directed video, "We wanted to make a bit of a homage to The Red Shoes. We follow her fate as she is forced to play piano until her hands bleed, only to be brought back to life time and time again when she collapses with exhaustion."

The Art of Losing will be the first album from The Anchoress since her 2016 debut album Confessions Of A Romance Novelist, and will include previous singles "The Art of Losing", "Unravel" and "Show Your Face".

The new album title is inspired by the opening line in Elizabeth Bishop's poem One Art - "The art of losing isn’t hard to master."