There's Much Bliss to Be Found on David Kilgour's A Feather in the Engine

New Zealander David Kilgour is one of the founding members of the Clean, perhaps the preeminent Kiwi son-of-Velvets outfit. On their latest album, last summer's Getaway, the trio scraped away at their usual Velvets scrabble, which has won them a devoted following all over the heavily factionalized indie landscape. This new solo album by the guitarist is a similarly ethereal affair, with lots of loping oceanic chords and much bliss to be had. And I mean bliss in the form of that psychedelic Velvets/Yo La Tengo vibe. Tengo's Ira and Georgia played on Getaway, and it sure sounds like Kaplan doing the guitar twirly-birds on the Velvets-like "All the Rest" here, though the liner notes are indecipherable. You can't really tell if it's Ira playing the high-flying guitar or it just sounds like him. Then again, Kilgour and crew influenced Yo La Tengo originally, just like they influenced all those following in the VU's epistemological stream. This kind of music has become a syndrome.

A new album of this shimmering stutter-strum has the same resonance now as a new album by BB King had by, say, 1969. Everyone knows what it's gonna sound like, so it's no surprise in "The Perfect Watch" when Kilgour wrangles some twisted acoustical flights worthy of Nick Drake and trills like Ray Davies. The next track, "Instra 2," is a worthless instrumental, but he's back on track with the melodramatic "I Lost My Train"?"melodramatic" in an almost Pete Perrett-of-the-Only-Ones way. The Strokes could really learn a thing or two from this cat, but they're too busy styling their hair. That's really what indie rock is anyway, isn't it? Bad hair rock?

The point of this kind of homespun stuff is that indie legends like Kilgour, virtually unknown anywhere else in the music world, don't kowtow to the dictates of the starmaking machinery. Your cousin Jeffrey could've made this album and mailed it to you for Christmas for all it matters?but your cousin Jeffrey's wouldn't have been as good as this one, because Kilgour, despite his self-imposed obscurity, is a true pro and long-term talent. Just listen to "Today Is Gonna Be Mine"?from the Jad Fair-like self-affirmation of the title to the Pavement-esque churn, this is more than indie-rock heaven?it's real rock heaven, but the only place you're ever gonna get it anymore is through indie rock. This song is ethereal in a late-60s Kinks way, with a lot of interwoven vocal harmonies and "ba da ba"s that would've sounded right at home on Nuggets II. You could say Kilgour is one of the true keepers of the faith.

Strings adorn "Instra 2 Reprise," which, with typical indie cheekiness, is not an "instra" at all but a tune of, once again, mid-60s proportions. The violins dance around like the ones on "Eleanor Rigby" and "I Am the Walrus," and there are plinking sitar textures while Kilgour sings "the snow is cocaine falling/Knocks me right out." It's a not-bad track, but like the aforementioned Beatles songs it's about two minutes too long. And "Wooden Shed" is Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" as if rendered by Yo La Tengo.

Kilgour may not give a fuck about fashion, but he's made a damn fine album nevertheless.