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Review: 'WARNER, STEVE'
'Steve Warner'   

-  Label: 'Earth Recordings'
-  Genre: 'Folk' -  Release Date: '22nd January 2016'-  Catalogue No: 'EARTH009'

Our Rating:
Originally released in 1979 on the Tasmanian label, Candle, the integrity and authenticity of this record derives primarily from the very anonymity of its creator.

Three years in the making, it is safe to assume that the young, long-haired Australian folk singer who conceived and performed these thirteen songs was resigned to the fact that it would reach only the tiniest of audiences.

Looking back, Warner says now : "I used to be fascinated by the grey zone between sleeping and waking, and of finding that place in music".

Alternating between acoustic guitar and piano, he sings in a hushed, fragile voice which conveys vulnerability but also communicates a sense of wonder and optimism for the world around him.

An image of him standing beneath a gum tree on Cement River admiring a girl with a "vibe stronger than the tide" is practically is the only clue to the record's antipodean origins.

There are plenty of the kind of intimate odes to women and nature you would expect but there's also a light-hearted exuberance to be found in a song like Hey, Hosanna and on instrumental ditties like Charlton and Crisp Morning.

You will also be able to admire Warner's finger picking skills, notably on Poems In Your Eyes in which he un-selfconsciously remembers summery days and nights of passion ("recall the mellow evening by the fire").

Overall there's a simplicity and innocent period charm to the album which is not as hippyish or acid-drenched as you would find on equivalent releases from the previous decade.

It'd be an exaggeration to call this album a buried treasure but there are more than enough nuggets here to merit bringing it to the attention of contemporary listeners.
  author: Martin Raybould

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WARNER, STEVE - Steve Warner