Nancy Elizabeth

Nancy Elizabeth's third album, Dancing, emerged incrementally. Seeking to repair and retreat after an intense period of travel and personal flux, Nancy created a bower in her tiny Manchester flat, with a piano at the centre, guitars hung on the wall, and her unique palette of instruments within easy reach. Flat broke and stuck at home, and using a computer to help her make music for the first time, she began to develop a new sound in her isolation. Slowly, surely, she nurtured these twelve handsome songs, playing and recording almost everything herself. Remarkably, the resulting album is her most cohesive and most uplifting yet.

The haunting first single by Nancy Elizabeth. Packing a lot into its three minutes and 20 seconds, the dynamic 'Hey Son' opens with a Davy Graham-inspired guitar figure and Nancy's unmistakably Northern voice, building to a crescendo of crashing percussion and dense vocal harmonies. The B-side song (exclusive to this release) is the evocative 'Live By The Sea', a recording of just Nancy's voice and the churning drone of an Indian harmonium.

I Used To Try is the second single by Lancashire born and bred Nancy Elizabeth. With shimmering dulcimer and sparse, booming percussion, 'I Used To Try' is a forceful statement of independence. "I like my world/'cause it's mine": the song's strident declarations are proudly unforgiving. 'In The Morning' (which is exclusive to this single) is more contemplative, just Nancy's delicate piano and down-to-earth, unaffected vocals.

With an intuitive understanding of melody and dynamics, Nancy Elizabeth brings a refreshingly Northern turn of phrase to her debut album, Battle and Victory. The Lancashire-born singer's down-to-earth songs are brought to life by her warm and unaffected voice; Unpretentious but effortlessly ambitious, Not content with writing and singing all the songs herself, the 23 year-old also plays most of the instruments, including guitar, khim, Indian harmonium, Appalachian dulcimer and bouzouki, amongst many others. Prominently featured is a 22-string Celtic harp, which she first picked up a little over two years ago, after an inspirational chance meeting with a harp player at a Liverpool gallery. Not long afterwards she received a modest award from a music foundation, and within days had spent it all on the perfect instrument, which has become a cornerstone of her performances.

In contrast to the rich tapestries of her debut album, 2007's Battle and Victory , Nancy has taken inspiration from silence and solitude to fuel these strangely gripping, quietly involving songs. Turning her back on the harp that provided the musical focus for her earlier work, these beautiful, understated compositions allow for a fresh instrumental palette, most of which she plays herself - including guitar, glockenspiel, vibraphone and a hundred-year-old Dulcitone - but built around her main instrument of choice, the piano, and her warm, unaffected voice.

With an intuitive understanding of melody and dynamics, Nancy Elizabeth brings a refreshingly Northern turn of phrase to her debut album, Battle and Victory. The Lancashire-born singer's down-to-earth songs are brought to life by her warm and unaffected voice; Unpretentious but effortlessly ambitious, Not content with writing and singing all the songs herself, the 23 year-old also plays most of the instruments, including guitar, khim, Indian harmonium, Appalachian dulcimer and bouzouki, amongst many others. Prominently featured is a 22-string Celtic harp, which she first picked up a little over two years ago, after an inspirational chance meeting with a harp player at a Liverpool gallery. Not long afterwards she received a modest award from a music foundation, and within days had spent it all on the perfect instrument, which has become a cornerstone of her performances.

In contrast to the rich tapestries of her debut album, 2007's Battle and Victory , Nancy has taken inspiration from silence and solitude to fuel these strangely gripping, quietly involving songs. Turning her back on the harp that provided the musical focus for her earlier work, these beautiful, understated compositions allow for a fresh instrumental palette, most of which she plays herself - including guitar, glockenspiel, vibraphone and a hundred-year-old Dulcitone - but built around her main instrument of choice, the piano, and her warm, unaffected voice.