Edward Harcourt‑Smith, born 14 August 1977 in Wimbledon, London, is an English singer‑songwriter, guitarist, pianist, bassist and drummer. He began piano lessons at nine, achieving grade 8 by seventeen, and later played in the school band Snug before recording the Maplewood EP in 2000. After signing with Heavenly Records, he released Here Be Monsters in June 2001, which peaked at Number 84 on the UK Albums Chart and earned a Mercury Prize nomination that year. From Every Sphere followed in February 2003, reaching Number 39 in the UK and producing the single "All of Your Days Will Be Blessed" at Number 35. Subsequent albums-Strangers (September 2004), The Beautiful Lie (June 2006), Lustre (June 2010), Back into the Woods (February 2013), Time of Dust (January 2014), Furnaces (August 2016), Beyond the End (November 2018), Monochrome to Colour (September 2020), El Magnifico (March 2024), and Orphic (November 2025)-were released under labels such as Dovecote, Piano Wolf, and CCCLX, with collaborations featuring The Magic Numbers, Graham Coxon, and Gita Harcourt‑Smith. He has written for Sophie Ellis‑Bextor, Paloma Faith, and others, and performed with Marianne Faithfull, Patti Smith, and The Libertines. His music has appeared in video games Silent Hill: Downpour and Alan Wake’s American Nightmare, and the single "The Way That I Live" was featured in a Burberry film in 2014.
