In my wonderfully formed Kev’s Top Tens for 2022 we can see nestling at #5 in the albums slot The World To Breathe by Nancy Howie, otherwise known as Fathom. Nancy is a piano tuner by trade and when she had time on her hands due to Covid she decided to make some instruments for herself which were then used to record the debut, and now she is back with a taster for the next one. A true multi-instrumentalist, Nancy is also a wonderful singer with a knack for coming up with arrangements which are both complex yet feel simplistic, packed full of hooks, which make her songs fresh and inviting.
Her latest number is pop with some folk elements, and it is incredible to think that this wall of sound was created by just one person, as while it may start with just some simple repeated chords on a piano it soon expands. There is a lot of space within the arrangement which allows all the individual instruments to shine while never taking away from the vocals and beautiful harmonies. It is a perfect Summer song, built for the radio, and unless someone had read a review they would never realise it was just one person using instruments she had built herself. That element might be what gets people trying her music for the first time, but they will soon forget that and instead fall in love with her wonderful feel for sound. Not only is she releasing her second album, Modern Reflections, in 2023 but as the recipient of the 2023 Daphne Gretta Mary Stevens Community Music Scholarship, she has been commissioned to write a suite of chamber music to be played on her DIY musical instruments. Those will both be well worth hearing but until then I will keep playing this, and you should as well.
Rating: 10/10
