A Feather in the Engine
A Feather in the Engineflows with such grace from one lovely melody to the next that it sounds effortless. Don't believe it--David Kilgour has been working up to this record for over 20 years. The singer, guitarist, and multi-instrumentalist from Dunedin, New Zealand, is a member of theClean, a trio specializing in making music by not thinking about it; each Clean song is a spontaneous combustion, every album a happy accident. Kilgour's solo discs, on the other hand, have been carefully crafted pieces of jangly guitar pop. This time, instead of going to the studio, he put one into his home so he could record when inspiration struck and then take as long as he wanted to polish his rough gems until they shone. The result is 13 tunes that combine the best of both approaches; they sound fresh and full of discovery, yet reward repeated listens with the depth of their painstakingly multilayered arrangements.--Bill Meyer