Magnus Öström E.s.t. 30

Well-travelled London-born guitarist Steve Garrett makes his charming solo debut album here. Full of astute choices of material delivered in a stripped down solo electric guitar setting beginning with Magnus Öström’s ‘Ballad for E’ plus Peter Gabriel, Huw Warren and Bruce Cockburn material and his own tunes, notably the poised and rather beautiful title track kept to the end. Garrett has arranged the material and done a good job with it in terms of communicating each piece. I certainly lit up inside when I heard ‘Mercy Street’ the Peter Gabriel tune from the 1980s overshadowed on So by the monstrous success of ‘Sledgehammer’ and ‘Don’t Give Up’…