SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: MAC McCAUGHAN – THE SOUND OF YOURSELF

Mac McCaughan
The Sound Of Yourself
Merge Records

Knowing that Mac McCaughan has been the front man for both Superchunk and Portastatic, what kind of sound would you expect to her from his latest solo effort, The Sound of Yourself? Well, if you go by some of the tracks here, like “Circling Around” and “I Hear the Radio,” you wouldn’t be far away from the truth, as these and few other tracks present that poppy rock sound McCaughan has been so good with for decades now.

Yet, there’s this other quite ambient side of this album, contemplative instrumental music, and it is no wander that McCaughan has recently worked on a film score. But, instead of doing the album in the David Bowie Low/Heroes mode, McCaughan has interspersed these different styles like a musical layer cake creating an effect that makes the two styles gel perfectly. Throughout, you are able to get the feel that the music is made by a singular artist, like on “Burn a Fax.”

Adding to the proceedings are a number of like-minded artists, like Yo La Tengo and Matt Douglas of The Mountain Goats, but overall, The Sound of Yourself is a Mac McCaughan show, presenting all the good musical things we knew about the guy, but also those we didn’t know so far.

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