The Warwickshire village I lived in as a child had a blacksmith's shop. Sometimes after school I could stand in the entrance and watch him patiently beat the yellow, then red iron into curves and loops for gates and railings. Fire bounced off his leather apron and his huge forearms glowed with sweat. The simple music, the physical strength, the hot smell and the calm, self-absorbed concentration were a fascination for me.
WROUGHT IRON is well named. Hand claps, a simple drum, a trumpet, metallophone, harmonica, guitar, piano provide the minimalist, often hard-edged accompaniments. Beating to shape or touching into position, they mould the raw emotion into poetic, sometimes shockingly personal songs. Written and recorded in silent places with solitude for company they wait to be approached and nurtured. The closer in you go, the richer they become.
Once the sparseness and precision of the music has been introduced and absorbed with the nearly unadorned piano of "Cairns", it's words and their possible meanings that dominate. There is no simple story. There are fragments of surprise and longing, set in suggestions of place and hints at time. There are glimpses of timidity, lust, reckless passion and disappearance. Grasp too soon, grasp at all, and it's gone.
"The Act" is terrifying. It builds on an electric guitar, played mostly for the shapes of its echoes and overtones. A gutturally sucked harmonica is joined briefly by a multi-tracked choir. The impossible lines seem to tell of climax and death, of scarlet and white, as the singer first watches, and then is embroiled in an act that is the more shocking for being so nearly, so ambiguously, explicit. It remains obscure. Like the acts of listening or of singing. It is followed with "Ruins", a gentler, seductive piano song. "I will lay myself naked in the early hours. I will listen to the sound of my red blood. I will stay here a while and take in the space and take in the sound."
At another extreme, "Feet of Courage" has a slow funky feel. The tone colours and textures are warm and silky, almost a dance. It, too, has that tentative approach to the unknown depths of love. "I will jump right in" ..."I'll take a dare to see" ... "each time they were burned they were forged" ... "A cowardly heart should be treated the same way. Iron is wrought like this." It's masterly stuff, trembling with strength and racked with personal courage. Listen, especially for the grace and splendour of "Lay Low" and Matthew Halsall's beautifully sympathetic trumpet playing.
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Anyone who has already noted the quality of NANCY ELIZABETH's music will be delighted to add this album to their collection. It represents a stronger dose of her bewitching potions, a rich growth. Anyone still unfamiliar is likely to be astonished that they have arrived so late in discovering such a mature performer.
The stories of each song will unfold differently for each listener. We weren't all born in Shakespeare's home county. NANCY ELIZABETH is a Lancashire lass, and her songs were composed in the Faeroe Islands, in Avignon, The Lake District and North Wales. I find myself listening from a different place each time I replay the album. The songs seem to demand it. Be witched.
Tracklisting
1. Cairns
2. Bring On The Hurricane
3. Tow The Line
4. Feet Of Courage
5. Divining
6. Cat Bells
7. Canopy
8. Lay Low
9. The Act
10. Ruins
11. Winter, Baby
www.nancyelizabeth.co.uk
www.theleasflable.com/nacnyelizabeth
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