Nancy Elizabeth's new album, Dancing, has emerged incrementally since the release of its predecessor, Wrought Iron, in 2009. Seeking to repair and retreat after an intense period of travel and personal flux, Elizabeth created a bower in her tiny Manchester flat, with a piano at the center, 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. Headphones on, her balletic voice at the ready, the songs began to tumble out, with Elizabeth often working long into the night. Slowly, surely, she nurtured these twelve handsome pieces, playing and recording almost everything herself. After two and a half years working in seclusion, Elizabeth handed the precious sound files to her long-time collaborator Peter Philipson, who untangled the haphazard creation and carefully stitched the album together. Remarkably, Dancing is her most cohesive and most uplifting album yet. First single "The Last Battle" is a magnificent introduction to its trove of pure musical delights. A soaring, celestial-soprano array, the song recalls Ennio Morricone and Arthur Lee, enveloping you in its skillfully constructed soundworld. While piano is the key instrument underpinning the album, Elizabeth's heady vocal melodies and fractal-deep choral eddies are at the heart of Dancing. Indeed, the song "Heart" almost feels like flying through stratospheric layers of singing parts, exhilarated by the sheer joy of it all. On "Shimmering Song" the aerial voices, combined with trilling bells and piano, seem to levitate the senses.
