Emily leaves a rosy glow

5:13pm Wednesday 21st March 2007

Emily Barker and the Red Clay Halo Square Chapel Centre for the Arts, Halifax Emily Barker walked on to the stage looking like something from Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons.

And the music, American folk, matched the image, but had an antipodean slant, as Miss Barker hails from Bridgetown in Western Australia.

Barker is a singer-songwriter who plays the guitar and the harmonica to an exceptional level.

She entered the UK music scene via the Cambridge Folk Festival and is dividing herself between Australia and the UK, promoting her debut solo album Photos. Fires. Fables.

She opened the concert with a song about unrequited love This Is How It's Meant To Be, which was both upbeat and melancholic. The songs that followed skipped along in a minor key, fusing together happy and sad emotions.

Her voice is simultaneously powerful and childlike and her songs, which are written very much with her heart on her sleeve, leave you with a rosy glow.

The songs show how versatile she is from the haunting slow numbers like The Fire to the more gutsy Fields of June.

Her backing group The Red Clay Halo, were three very adept musicians, who padded the songs out with violin, cello, accordion, flute and four-part harmonies.

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