News / Guest releases classy EP
YORKSHIRE singer songwriter Adam Guest, who moved to Shetland last year, is launching a new EP featuring local musicians early next month.
Guest will be joined by Arthur Nicholson and Louise Thomason, who both appear on the ‘Open the Book’ EP, at Lerwick Boating Club on Friday 5 December. There will also be sets from Nicholson and Kirsty North on clarsach (Celtic harp).
The 26 year old singer, originally from Barnsley, moved to the islands in late 2013 to work as a journalist with The Shetland Times. He has swiftly become a familiar face within the local music scene, and this summer supported artists including Declan O’Rourke and Devon Sproule.
The four-song CD was recorded with the help of Lau sound engineer Tim Matthew over the summer. It also features fiddle from Catherine Brown and bass from Phil Thornett.
It opens with the warm, breezy strum of ‘Salt in Every Breeze’. With the help of Catherine Brown’s fiddle, Phil Thornett on bass and backing vocals from Thomason and Nicholson, the song unfolds into an understated yet moving anthem extolling the virtues of relocating to these windswept shores.
The lyrics are a direct address to Guest’s immediate family, assuring them that he’s doing just fine on this isolated rock in the middle of the North Sea: “There’s hope in every word I write; the pouring rain brings me comfort in the night”.
There is a similar theme on ‘Red Rocks’, which demonstrates some nifty fingerpicked guitar as the singer imagines buying a house by the sea so he can listen to the waves crashing.
The EP’s eponymous third track is arguably its centrepiece, Guest’s distinctive Yorkshire burr melding neatly with Thomason’s as he vows to live life to the full: “Open the book, cast out the line, focus my mind; it’s time I live, it’s time I ride…”
Closer ‘Lullaby’, a duet with Thomason, opens with darker undertones as the protagonist vows to protect a loved one from the howling wind and fading light. The song itself emerges from the shadows in style with a beautiful swoop-and-swoon harmony from Thomason during the solace-offering chorus.
Taken as a whole, ‘Open the Book’ is a classy, concise piece of work boasting well-constructed acoustic songs and subtle melodies, and something Guest can be justifiably proud of.
- Tickets to Adam Guest’s ‘Open the Book’ EP launch at Lerwick Boating Club on Friday 5 December are available now, priced £8, from Shetland Box Office.
Neil Riddell
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