Fancie – A Negative Capability

Falling like a great wet blanket over the first buds of spring, Fancie (a.k.a. Elisabeth Wood) has crafted a complex debut album of matching torch songs and baroque folk-pop. Having first gained attention through singing backup for Kaitlyn Ni Donavan, who contributes violin to three tracks, Wood employs a deeply powerful voice and a penchant for unique guitar tunings to fill a niche in the female singer-songwriter universe that is largely her own.
Much of her musical product presents itself as a less orchestrated Nick Drake, with melodies, doused in melancholy and somber acoustic-based arrangements, presenting a stark contrast to much of the contemporary female singer-songwriter crowd. While her music has been favorably compared to Polly Jean Harvey and Julie Doiron, there are moments, such as the stripped down “I Lose,” when you could almost mistake her for a young Joan Baez. Still, Wood certainly isn’t in the business of saving the world through protest songs, being much more content to drown the ghosts of failed relationships in clever metaphors. While her songwriting sense is undeniably elegant, the enveloping moroseness runs a little thick at 16 tracks.
Wood’s finger-picking guitar skills are substantial enough to dominate the mix of many tracks, with the lilting-pop of “Love is Meat” and the haunting “Punkin” providing fine examples of her decidedly subdued style. In other places, the percolating guitar and drums of tracks like “Want Your Child” interlock to wring every last drop of simmering displacement out of the moody atmosphere. Really though, as Wood uses her musical platform for a certain amount of therapeutic healing, her angst is of a completely different variety from artists like Ani DiFranco, presenting topics in an altogether metaphoric and less overt way. Similarly, Wood won’t overwhelm you with the immediacy of her musical arrangements, though the inclusion of the occasional flute or French horn goes a great distance to appropriately dress up the rather unadorned feel. Melodies generally hang on the periphery, rarely taking the spotlight from the despondent musings, although her lyrics are hard to decipher at times.
Overall, A Negative Capability is the kind of album that goes a long way to explain why all of the press photos of Wood leave her face conspicuously absent from the shot. It’s an album that speaks of pain, of not avoiding your problems but possibly not ready to line up face to face with them either. Ultimately an album rife with mystery, strength, and vulnerability, Wood bravely plumbs the depths of emotion and offers it to the world.