Steve Adey (born in Great Barr, Birmingham) is an English musician and singer-songwriter. His music is characterised by slow tempos, minimalist arrangements, underpinned by piano and a rich baritone vocal. As of 2018 Adey has released three studio albums and various EPs and singles.
Adey released his critically well received debut album All Things Real in 2006 through independent record label Grand Harmonium Records. Music journalists often categorise his piano, vocal led songs as folk and singer-songwriter, but also acknowledge a harder, less generic, left of mainstream approach; No Ripcord's Simon Briercliffe writes "His voice is rich and carries on long after it's comfortable, at times far louder and more in your ear than is comfortable, leaving you hanging on every word." Writers generally warmed to the album's introspective songs and well chosen covers. US journal for improvised and progressive music 'Signal to Noise' heralded the album as "haunting folk into straight-up epic territory." Many reviews picked up on the integration of hi-fidelity crossed with a lo fi, homemade approach. Sunday Times critic Mark Edwards: "The secret lies in the gap between Adey’s main influences: on the one hand, the mournful, home-made alt-country of Oldham and Smog; on the other, the pristine atmospheres of the Blue Nile and Talk Talk." Critic Leon McDdermott (Glasgow Herald) writes "Adey channels the spirit of Smog, minus Bill Callahan's caustic take on dysfunctional relationships; elsewhere, there are hints of the late Jeff Buckley's mournful tenderness."
Grand Harmonium released lead single "Find the Way" (31.06.06), containing two new acoustic recordings of "Find the Way" and "Mississippi". Mississippi: Remixed, a download only EP, featuring Kramer, A Marble Calm, Black Sheep and Sweet Billy Pilgrim was released (14.05.07). The Marble Calm remix was also released on 12" vinyl via Tonefloat Records. A limited 7" single and download, "Burning Fields" b/w "Everything in its Right Place" followed in September 2007.
Adey (with full band) played several festivals around Europe in 2007, and in August 2007 headlined his debut UK tour.
In 2010, a new Steve Adey track (excerpt) was featured in an advert for Mercedes-Benz.
A five-song EP entitled These Resurrections was released in May 2011. A new studio "long player" The Tower of Silence was released in November 2012 to positive critical response. The Tower of Silence made The Sunday Times Album of the Week and Q Magazine cited the album as "beautiful and grandly". MusicOMH garnered the album "a meticulously crafted, sparse and funereally paced soundscape on which every note seems to have to earn its place; an eerie, sweeping soundtrack of grand orchestration."
A new album of covers entitled "Do Me a Kindness" was released on 4 August 2017. The album includes takes on David Bowie, Nick Cave, Bob Dylan, PJ Harvey and more.