Ren Harvieu

Ren Harvieu has always written her own myth, even when the world tried to write it for her. The Salford-born singer-songwriter first came to attention with her debut album Through The Night, which climbed into the UK Top 5 and drew fans as diverse as Johnny Marr, Nas, and Tom Jones. Just as her career was set to take flight, a life-altering spinal injury forced years of recovery. Her follow-up, Revel In The Drama, was a triumph of resilience and imagination, praised across the board, though released on the eve of a global pandemic. Two near-misses might have silenced a lesser artist. For Harvieu, they became the fire. Her new single, In On The Sparkle, captures that rebirth, swinging between tenderness and defiance, memory and mischief. “The Sparkle is spirit, it’s hunger, it’s fight, it’s bite,” says Harvieu. Part autobiography, part manifesto, the track channels the alchemy of her Salford upbringing, a world where art was conjured from the everyday. “It’s a love letter to the bungalow I grew up in with my mum, where the ordinary could turn supernatural whenever we'd kick the karaoke machine.” Blending grounded grit with imaginative flight, Harvieu’s sound draws on Judy Garland, Fairport Convention, and John Cooper Clarke. In On The Sparkle is equal parts theatrical and feral, intimate and unapologetically Salford: This is the sound of a woman reclaiming her story with humour, sensuality, and a spark that refuses to dim.