Katherine Priddy - Matches

Q4 W41 New Music 2025

Katherine Priddy – Matches

Katherine Priddy shares “Matches”, the first single from her third album These Frightening Machines, out March 6th 2026 on Cooking Vinyl. The track reclaims the voices of women killed during the witch trials. Priddy went down a rabbit hole researching the language around witch hunts and realised the focus on burning “witches” obscures what actually happened: women were killed on false accusations for all sorts of reasons. She wrote the song during a solo writing retreat at Wenlock Abbey, where the ancient surroundings inspired her to reflect on the past.

The album was produced by Rob Ellis, who’s worked with PJ Harvey, Anna Calvi, Marianne Faithfull, and Bat for Lashes. It was recorded at The Glaucus House and Middle Farm Studios in rural Devon. Patrick J Pearson handled engineering, with additional work contributed by Soren Bryce. TJ Allen mixed and Guy Davie mastered. Ben Christophers, who’s worked with Natasha Khan and Guy Garvey, plays multiple instruments, including pixiphone, marxophone, and harmonium, across most tracks. Priddy herself plays acoustic guitar, bouzouki, and glockenspiel.

Priddy wrote the album over a year while moving from her twenties into her thirties. She kept an open mind, letting songs find their shape rather than forcing them into a preset form. The record covers anger, despair, hope, longing, and lust. It examines her relationship with her body, her role as a 30-year-old artist, and what it means to keep going when things fall apart.

Notable guests include Torres, who duets on “Madeleine”, and Richard Walters, who joins on “I’m Always Willing”. Priddy describes the album as her most sonically varied yet, exploring what it means to be human and perpetually in progress. She wanted to end on a question mark rather than having everything figured out.