BELLA HARDY : Songs Lost And Stolen

Apr 17 2011 by Paul Cole, Sunday Mercury

SHE made her name as a folk singer – but Bella Hardy isn’t resting on her laurels. She’s dipping a toe in the mainstream.

The Derbyshire singer songwriter’s new album, Songs Lost And Stolen, is her first entirely self-penned set.

And the mix of tradition and life in a troubled 21st century is sure to see her challenging the likes of Karine Palwart.

It is, quite literally, magical, at times seemingly set in the world of Susanna Clark’s Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

Bridge Of Dean is the chilling tale of a drowned girl and everyone’s primal fear of the things that go bump in the night.

“I went for a walk one night and ended down a path on my own in the dark,” says Bella.

“It’s a path that runs along a river and I scared myself witless. When I got home I wrote this song. I was haunted by the girl lying drowned in the river.”

There’s another tale of watery woe in Flowers Of May, this time with an enigmatic ending. Is it the shipwrecked sailor who returns, or just his spirit?

“Edale, being landlocked, wasn’t the obvious place to write about a man who went to sea,” she admits.

“I was inspired by an album of sea shanties. People are surprised that it’s not a true story, but it could well be true.” The Herring Girl is the tale of a fishwife remaining defiant in the face of a murder charge.

The Labyrinth uses the legend of the Minotaur as a metaphor for life, and Rosabel was inspired by the original Beauty and the Beast.

Not that it’s all rooted in the past. Deceptively upbeat Jenny Wren makes reference to the Twin Towers tragedy.

There are hints of Joni Mitchell here, Dar Williams there, but Bella has her own voice. She has been listening, she says, to Little Boots and Florence Rawlings.

It’s a heady mix of new and old, and not to be missed. PC