Newtown rising star Abi's album in launch gig

At just 19, she's already carving out a name for herself across Shropshire, Mid Wales and beyond, regularly performing at pubs, festivals and events, quietly and diligently gathering an army of converts to her music.

And on October 25, the teenager will showcase songs from her latest CD Everything Ends at The Hafren in Newtown as it gets its official launch on iTunes and Spotify.

You could be forgiven for wondering how someone of such tender years manages to find herself releasing an album and her second one at that!

Her early interest in music began with the traditional round of extra curricular activities at Dolfor Primary School. A young Abi took piano and violin lessons but it wasn't until she picked up a guitar that her passion for music was really ignited.

"I'd been brought up on musical theatre like Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables. I still like it now but that's not what sits with me as a performer. I decided at 13 to buy a guitar and I've never looked back," she said.

"It's artists like Elliot Smith and Nina Nesbitt who resonate with me. Just being able to pick up a guitar and convey all the emotion you want with just one instrument and a voice is what makes me tick. I can't really shoehorn my style into one particular genre so 'acoustic singer songwriter' kind of works for me as a label if I have to have one at all!"

Abi added: "I wrote my first album of original songs Scarlet Rain between the ages of 13 and 16 and released it when I was 16. Everything Ends is another CD of all original music and I'm really excited to get it out there on wider release. I did a test run of 100 demos earlier this year that were really well received but this will be the first time it's available to download online. The album has been revamped with new graphics and I'll be selling them at my gigs as well."

What fans her creative flame is day-to-day snippets of conversations and events that will start the germ of an idea she can pick up and develop into new material.

She said: "It's usually a line from a conversation or something that's happened to me. When it's the right thing for a song the music and lyrics just flow together. I'll start with a diary type entry that just jump-starts the whole songwriting process and morphs into a song as it grows."

Like any 19-year-old who grew up in the digital age, Abi uses technology to promote her music and posts a weekly song on her YouTube channel. More often than not, it's covers of the likes of Lana Del Ray, John Legend or Ariana Grande but in the weeks leading up to her album launch, she will be releasing original material regularly.

Abi's quiet determination to succeed in the ferociously cut-throat world of music saw her leave Llanidloes High School at 15 to pursue her dreams. She moved to Manchester for a while at 16 and some of those experiences have translated into songs on Everything Ends.

"The second song on the album – Fiction – I wrote when I was 13, after my first time playing in front of people at a talent show in my village," she explained.

"It was originally about a mix of performance nerves and self doubt before performing and then the feeling of wanting to do as much as I could with music and put in lots of work."

The official launch of Everything Ends is at The Hafren on October 25 at 7.30pm.