Peaceful Warrior – A 2025 Feminist Song Cycle

Peaceful Warrior is a feminist tour de force, featuring songs co-written by a team of acclaimed female singer–songwriters and artists. Produced by award-winning multi-instrumentalist, writer and engineer Dr Catherine Davies (aka The Anchoress), Liberty Mother’s six-track song cycle takes the listener through a merciless 25-minute narrative journey of internalised sexism, rage against the patriarchy and fury at a male-controlled world at war.

Combining haunting instrumental arrangements with spoken word contributions by female musicians and singers, the EP presents a powerful case for the importance of gender equality in songwriting and the creative industries. It was devised by Professor Daniels as a pioneering research/practice project (and forthcoming book) addressing why it matters greatly who writes the songs that soundtrack our lives.

Sophie Says

My first record was a wonderful learning journey. I used songs to navigate the grief process,starting to accept, finally, that Liberty was gone. After the album’s release, I thought the Liberty’s Mother project was a one–off life experience and thatchapter was closed forever. I regarded myself as a professor, songwriter and researcher, but not a recording or performing artist.

Then I wrote ‘Unwritten Song’ with Katarina Gunnerholm, which was a wonderful experience where I fully expressed the everlasting sadness of never having a girl. Focusing on the loss of an expected future, rather than her loss itself, I knew I wanted that song to be a personal project in some way, I just didn’t know how.

Then I wrote ‘godsplaining’ and a whole world opened up before me. I had entered the session planning to explore misogyny and internalised sexism in songwriting and record production in response to discussions we were having in the F–List Gender Research Hub. I had been asked by the Women and Equalities Committee (who were working on the ‘Misogyny in Music’ Government enquiry) to justify the view I put forward about gender difference in songwriting and it highlighted various lines of enquiry I wanted to explore. It was this song that made me realise I was writing a new Liberty’s Mother mini-album. A very different one, this time; one which looked at gender.

Through this process, I explored my relationship with motherhood and gender from the perspective of a bereaved parent. I realised my desire to have and raise a girl is directlyconnected with my internal struggles which focus on the things I have not done and never will do because I am female who lives in a world of insurmountable sexism and misogyny.

All of this and more is expressed in the second Liberty’s Mother mini–album, Peaceful Warrior. I hope you love it as much as I do and it empowers you to explore these very important themes.

Love, Sophie

The Team

Professor Sophie Daniels aka Liberty’s Mother

A former commercial music professional who worked directly with Simon Cowell, Sophie is the UK’s first female Professor of Songwriting. Professor Daniels founded the Masters programme at The Institute Contemporary Music (ICMP) in London – the largest songwriting research community in the world. A pioneering researcher in songwriting education and the ‘humanity of songs’, Sophie is also a gender equality public speaker and campaigner.

Regularly appearing on BBC Radio 6 Music as a ‘6 Musicologist’ on Huw Stephen’s Drivetime show, Sophie is also a Director of UK CIC ‘The F–List’. She makes song work under the artist name ‘Liberty’s Mother’ – a music project inspired by her late daughter Liberty, raising awareness on baby loss for the UK Government’s All Party Parliamentary Group.

www.sophiedaniels.com

Dr. Catherine Davies aka The Anchoress

Catherine Anne Davies is a Welsh producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter.

A classically trained flautist, Catherine is also a three-time Music Producers Guild Award nominee, music engineer and Professor of Music Production and Songwriting at ICMP and SAE. Her artist project, The Anchoress, has been nominated for the Welsh Music Prize twice, and has won plaudits including ‘Album of the Year’ from The Sunday Times, Record Collector and Elton John.

In 2014, Catherine joined the line-up of Simple Minds, appearing on albums Big Music (2015) and Walk Between Worlds (2018) before departing in 2019. She has since co-written with prominent industry names including Ed Harcourt (Paloma Faith, James Bay), Liam Howe (Jessie Ware, Marina), Paul Statham (Kylie, Dido), MOBO-nominated singer-songwriter/cellist Ayanna Witter-Johnson and British rapper Riz MC.

www.theanchoress.co.uk

The All Female Team for Peaceful Warrior

This song cycle is researched, written, produced, played, recorded, engineered, mixed and mastered entirely by female artists- all incredibly talented music professionals and creatives.

Peaceful Warrior is art and activism at its most unique – a piece of research/practice exploring sexism within songcraft, the creative process, song subject matter and record production. The album’s process has been catalogued and documented and is being presented by Sophie at upcoming conferences. Following the launch of the research at The F–List Conference, it will be made into a documentary.

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