Steve Adey
Album: The Tower Of Silence
Label: Grand Harmonium
Tracks: 8
Website: http://www.thetowerofsilence.com

Having announced himself with All Things Real, his memorable debut from 2006, recording engineer turned auteur Steve Adey has certainly taken his time and been on his travels to make sure the follow up is a worthy successor.

It is. Arresting voices, including Adey's own rich baritone, and a range of instruments are employed to generate an album of rare beauty that speaks to the disquieted soul in us all. Adey's songs typically deal with the polar opposites that bracket any given situation, affording both extremes a voice without necessarily requiring the listener to come down on either side. The approach is particularly effective in chronicling the sorrows sung by Adey and Helena MacGlip in the beautifully slowcore Laughing.

Producer/engineer Calum Malcolm (The Blue Nile, Prefab Sprout) gives the songs and the sounds that make them up plenty of time and space in which to develop. From the opening soundscape, A Few Seconds Have Passed, to the closing end theme of Tomorrow, acoustic instruments and vintage synthesisers meet, mingle and map their various courses across male and female voices, breathy harmonies and languid lead vocals. Army of One and With Tongues float gently towards Sigur Ros post-rock territory, but Secret Place has an earthier, almost Americana, feel and his cover of Alasdair Roberts' deathly Farewell Sorrow is simply stunning.

An album of sonic spectres, lonely reminiscences, solitary scenes and gentle pleasure, don't keep it to yourself.

Nick Churchill
www.thegranvillechambers.co.uk