David Kilgour "A Feather in the Engine" (2024 Reissue)

Originally released in 2002, A Feather in the Engine followed two full-band efforts-1997's David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights and The Clean's 2001 album Getaway-and is thus almost startling in it's intimacy. Recorded at home and mostly alone (The Verlaines' Graeme Downes provides lush string arrangements), Kilgour once called A Feather in the Engine "the most solo LP I've made." Interpolating his genius for guitar pop through acoustic guitars and gorgeous instrumentals, it's melodies unfold gently, suggesting that the 13 songs here, written over the course of four years, were searching Kilgour as much as he was searching them. Lovingly remastered (and in some cases remixed) from the original tapes by Tom Bell at Port Chalmers Recording Services, the vinyl reissue of A Feather in the Engine is a crucial opportunity to rediscover one of David Kilgour's best records, a handcrafted gem that perfects guitar pop's past while pointing to it's future, idiosyncratic in it's making and tantalizing in it's potential. There is good reason for David Kilgour to be your favorite musician's favorite musician. A Feather in the Engine is good reason for him to become yours.