MARISA YEAMAN
'PURE MOTIVE' Deep Pearl Records
An essential element of the Equilibrium Radio Show is bringing to the litening public the music of the wonderful singer-songwriters here in Australia...this review addresses the music of one of Australia's finest. This high quality Australian album contains emotive songs which stem from Marisa Yeaman's life journey...one very different to that experienced by many of us...yet I found myself experiencing a high degree of association with her heartfelt lyrics when I first played the release.

In the Seventies, aged four, the now Melbourne-based singer-songwriter began a lifestyle of travelling around Australia with her parents after they sold their home and took to the road with a huge caravan. She experienced the enormity of the Australian outback and took in the diversity of countryside and the characters she met along the way. A lot of radio was listened to during the long hours on the road and these influences have now come through in her writings and performance style. Acoustic music was especially absorbed and it did not take long for Marisa to pick up her first guitar and begin putting her words into her playing and singing. Although always finding time to be composing songs, Marisa journeyed down a private path with her songwriting until in 1996 friends convinced her to take up live performance and share her writings...and guess what happened?...at her third ever public performance she was awarded Runner Up Australian Female Roots Artist...and now Marisa is being recognised for her "confessional songwriter" approach and the earthy way her music is presented to the listener.

I certainly experienced this last year when Marisa played live-to-air on Equilibrium...her songs were so open, yet so personal if you know what I mean...I had really strong listener response to her performance and so during 2006 Marisa Yeaman's music will open all 12 "Equilibrium Home Grown" shows broadcast on the last Monday night each month. Marisa'a continual songwriting has culminated in the recording of "Pure Motive"...13 great tracks co-produced by Andrew Pendlebury (one of Australia's best guitar proponents in Classical /Jazz /Blues /Country and Rock with ARIA-nominated releases in his own right), together with in-studio assistance from such well respected musicians as Ed Bates, Ron Tabuteau, Matthew Vehl, Bon Krunic, Dean Addison, Colin Wynn, Marcus Goodwin and the legendary Dave Steel. The tracks are diverse in structure and content, yet all reflect aspects of life as experienced by Marisa during those formative years on the road and later in a more typical home-based environment...three tracks are live recordings and one song "Another Day" even explores the loneliness she now feels when on the road and the strong desire to be "back home"...I guess those early years on the road were home to her with family close by and now home is the more usual situation most of us call home. As part of ensuring that her feel of her music came through on the album the original demos for the recording sessions were recorded by Marisa in her home studio where she played all the instruments including harmonica, piano and slide guitar. Over thirty songs were under consideration for final selection.

"Pure Motive" is an album well worth exploring because of the diversity of content, the uncluttered warmth of the actual recording style and the honesty and emotion of the lyrical content...you can check out all about Marisa and her music on her Website and hear plenty of her music this year on Equilibrium...including another live-to-air performance later in the year (after a proposed overseas tour).

Marisa Yeaman performs regularly at The Bodhi Tree Cafe, 317 Maroondah Highway, Healesville...that's for those living around Melbourne...what a great name for a place to be enlightened!
Laurie West