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In the two years since the release of Battle And Victory, Nancy
Elizabeth Cunliffe has duetted with James Yorkston and flirted with electro
chill-out on Susuma Yokota's recent recording Mother. With Wrought
Iron, the Lancashire lass returns to the fragility that characterised
her debut.
The tender opening of the lyricless Cairns and its layers of
choral vocals mark out early on the quiet but mesmerising nature of this album.
Cunliffe possesses a delicate, cracked vocal style which, together with the sparse
instrumentation, initially gives rise to a ghostly atmosphere.
But her poetic lyrics turn out to be overwhelmingly positive, with a
strong flowing narrative about courage, strength and survival. She
will take on the hurricane when it comes for her (Bring On The
Hurricane) and she will survive the winter as early springtime sits in
wait for her (Winter, Baby).
A clue to the album title's meaning comes
in the upbeat Feet Of Courage which tells us that as
iron is wrought to make it stronger, so too should the cowardly heart
be subject to adversity and experience to strengthen it. Trundling
through Lay Low, Cunliffe recounts that, when
she finds herself alone and scared, she
remembers advice she once took that helps her move on. This is
intensely personal stuff.
The instrumentation relies less on the harp and the strings that
featured so heavily on Battle And Victory, with her piano instead
dominating. Flashes of percussion on Feet Of Courage, trumpets on the
simple Divining and the rhythmic bells of Cat Bells and Winter, Baby
invest other sounds into the project, adding interest to the
overall sound. But really it's what she leaves out that draws the
listener in.
Tow The Line and Ruins are both stunning demonstrations of control
with their gentle melodies developing at their own pace
without any percussive interference. This general sense of space and
freedom, and the solitude that comes with it, reflects the isolated retreats in the
Faroe Islands, the Lake District and rural Spain in which the album was made.
Wrought Iron is a beautiful, fragile work. It's more
consistent than Battle And Victory, with a remarkably focussed sound.
While her roots may be found in the folk genre Nancy Elizabeth Cunliffe transcends it
and, here, proves she has the power to move people.
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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees
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