24 June 2021 - 0 Comments

Lead Singer from folk trio Tweed, Nancy Howie, has set off to start her own solo project Fathom with a debut album The World to Breathe.

NZ’s first COVID lockdown, forced Nancy to take a break from performance. Stranded at home, she discovered a passion for inventing and building experimental instruments, beginning with a fencepost-based creation resembling a cello, and expanding to balloon-saxophones, unusual percussion instruments, and an improvised hurdy gurdy

The World to Breathe is a sprawling bedroom-folk experiment featuring these DIY instruments which tests the limits of lockdown-borne creativity. The album explores themes of anxiety, self-discovery and unfamiliarity of life under COVID-19. Incorporating influences of 70's folk-rock, jazz, and indie, the album touches on the familiar ideas, but the sound of homemade instrumentation is uniquely her own. Over the coming months, the Fathom project will be brought to exhibition venues around New Zealand, as part of a fundraising effort to have her home-recorded album professionally mixed and mastered for release. Nancy will show her instruments, tell their story, and play a sneak preview of the album.

Nancy is a singer-songwriter, musician and maker. Hailing from Auckland by way of a nomadic childhood on a boat. Nancy has written and performed with her folk trio Tweed for almost a decade, playing in Folk Festivals across New Zealand, on Radio New Zealand’s NZ Live programme, and for theatrical presentations.

The Exhibitions:

Whangaparaoa Library, Whangaparaoa - May 29th, 2pm

Movespace, Auckland - June 27th, 1pm

Whittakers’ Musical Museum, Waiheke Island - July 10th, 2pm

Ramp Festival, Hamilton - August 5th, 4.30pm

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