She talks to Neil Dunphy about getting back on the horse

THREE years ago Cathy Davey was in what must have been a pretty lonely place. She had been signed by the head of Parlophone Miles Leonard. He had big plans for her. The world was at her feet.

In a few short months, after the release of Something Ilk, she had to get out, no one knowing if we would ever hear from her again.

Now it's baby steps. Davey has organised a series of residency gigs across the country in small venues such as Whelans and Dolans in Limerick to test the waters for Tales of Silversleeve. Will anyone come? Does anyone remember Cathy Davey? This is a trial run, she says, for the label especially. "Just because of the last flop. I can totally understand their position. It is much smaller scale and a small budget so it is manageable but I don't have any guilt attached to it this time around."

The problem lay with great expectations . . . and too many cooks. "They were sure the first album was going sell loads so the amount of money put into it was around the same amount they would probably put into Coldplay or whoever. It was too huge. I signed up and could never live up to that capital. Nothing was natural. Now it feels more controlled from my side and the results feel so much more rewarding. It's just real life; it's not living in la-la land."

Davey admits to being "swept away" when Parlophone threw money at her. "I'm glad I learnt my lesson." Signed on a three-album deal, Parlophone let her be for a couple of years. She began recording demos in her house, gradually rebuilding her confidence. Gradually compiling an album of discreet beauty and complelling melody.

It's been worth the wait alright.

Sometimes she would email them demos and hear nothing for ages. "I was left alone and am grateful for it whatever the reason."

The turning point came when she played her final Something Ilk gig, a support slot to the Manic Street Preachers in the Olympia. I was there; I thought it was quite a good show. Then she disappeared.

"If I could wash that out of people's brains I would, " she says, half joking. "I was miserable. I just didn't know how to perform and didn't enjoy playing the songs because I had never sorted out which songs would be good live. I didn't know how to replicate the album . . . and anyway, I wasn't even proud of the album so it was a double whammy."

I didn't realise it was that bad.

"Everything was wrong from the start. Everything that snowballed from that couldn't be right. This time round from the very start it feels right. It felt contrived."

It sounds cheesy but how does something so right turn out so wrong? "Sometimes you are fearful that your ideas will be beaten down, " she says, drawing on her cigarette through partially pink varnished fingers. "If those ideas are better than your own you don't have an honest sense of your own ideas. . ." This was serious. Davey had been seduced by the big time, packaged with professional session musicans and a famous producer (Ben Hillier), forced to record a hit album. She had lost control.

"I was really uncomfortable and feeling short-changed at having to do things that I was bad at. I thought I'd make demos and the rest would follow and it wasn't like that. Some people lost confidence in me because what they thought I was I wasn't. And that is no one's fault. I don't want to blame anyone, it was a lack of having a plan."

But you don't get a second chance to make a first impression.

"Yeah, that's very true but I had no idea of the scale. I just didn't come from a music listener's perspective. I didn't know what impact interviews had or the impact a single had." This time she has a plan.

First up, cut costs and take control. Forget the hired guns. "I am so uncomfortable with other people's representations of me and that concerns stylists and videos and everything that comes with a major label. I am so relieved that the album didn't do well because it was such a misinterpretation. . ."

You can understand why a young musican can get her styling, interviews or hairdo wrong but how did the music go so wrong?

"The music went wrong because I thought that you learned how to deal with being in a studio by just doing it. And the music went so right this time is because I did it on my own and wasn't embarrassed at not being a wonderful session musician or a wonderful pianist.

"The last record sounded like a record that was produced by Ben Hillier that is signed to a label that thinks they have signed an indie rock chick that wants to be PJ Harvey. I thought that once you were in with a great producer it would happen. But I was doing it with a band who were better musicans than me. When I looked at my piano player he was classically trained and the bass player with an amazing sense of rythym. It ended up being other people's albums with a struggle for it to be mine. It sounds ike a mish-mash conflict and over-produced and over-worked and everything.

That's why it's an embarrassment to me."

So, Tales of Silversleeve is Davey's statement. There are no hiding places now. She got a good producer, Liam Howe (ex Sneaker Pimps), to help. "He wasn't judging me. . . If I'm judged by someone I just keep making mistakes so I knew he was right for me. I don't want someone to question me until I'm finished. It sounded so abrasive when I first put it to him and I kind of challenged him but he was really cool.

Just a really nice guy."

Davey then recruited some band members. Conor O'Brien from now defunct indie band The Immediate and Bell X1 frontman Paul Noonan will play drums during the forthcoming tour. It's quite the supergroup.

It goes without saying it's a far cry from PJ Harvey too. Some tracks have an almost Motown feel while others are rockabilly stompers the Violent Femmes would be happy covering. There's some electro edginess and the odd quiet moment. It may sound a little diverse but then that's just how it sounds. But it has one unifying thread running throughout: it sounds like a happy person made it. "I wanted to make an upbeat album that I could play live for a year, " beams Davey. Time to leave the past behind.

Cathy Davey plays the HWCH festival in Tripod tonight and begins nationwide residencies from next Sunday. 'Tales of Silversleeve' is out on 12 October