Bella's doing ballads at the Palace (From Dorset Echo)

Bella's doing ballads at the Palace

12:00pm Monday 30th January 2012 in Stage By

Bella Hardy is one of the finest young folk acts around – singing unaccompanied ballads or entwining her hypnotic voice with her own fiddle accompaniment to breathtaking effect. Three times nominated in the BBC Folk Awards, she has a voice marked as ‘mesmerising’ and ‘faultless’ – and she will be performing at the Electric Palace on Friday, February 17.

Her songs touch on both the fantastical, storytelling elements of Kate Bush and the lovelorn songwriting craft of Carole King, ranging in subject matter from fairytales to English working class history via childhood nostalgia, myths, murder and the human condition.

Songs Lost and Stolen is the much anticipated new album from the acclaimed Peak District singer and the first to feature all her own material. Having made a name for herself in traditional English music with her debut album Night Visiting and its follow-up In the Shadow of Mountains, it was clear that Bella was more than just a fine interpreter of folk songs. Nominated for a BBC Folk Award for the self-penned Three Black Feathers from Night Visiting (later covered by Jim Moray on his award winning album Low Culture), Bella’s next record In the Shadow of Mountains featured much more of her own work, including the Lennon and McCartney-esque Sylvie Sovay, a reimagining of folk’s eponymous highwaywoman as an abused wife on the brink.

It was described by English Dance & Song magazine as ‘destined for classic status’.

On ‘Songs Lost & Stolen’, Bella has combined the traditional styles and ballad forms that have always been at the centre of her work, with a gift for poetry. Songs include Bridge of Dean, a tragic tale inspired by the fears that lurk in our own imagination, and Rosabel, a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast fairytale, with hints of early Joni Mitchell. For the Electric Palace gig doors open at 7.30pm and the performance begins at 8.30pm.

Tickets are £12.50 each and are available in advance from Bridport Tourist Information Centre on 01308 424901 or at www.seetickets.com.