Friday 9 September 2011

Lindsey Buckingham - Seeds We Sow

Landscape Choric Gardener

Here's more pretty music to celebrate! Pop-Mac maestro Lindsey Buckingham's sixth solo album [and I am not really familiar with the others] is well beyond the seeding stage, being the seasoned pro that he is, and his distinctive musical landscape - the one I am more familar with in post-blues Fleetwood Max - is much in evidence here.

Title track Seeds We Sow begins with that distinctive sound in the finger-plucked guitar, and this is augmented by the electrifed same and overdubbed vocal harmonies of second track In Our Own Time [where I also hear echos of Roy Harper guitar playing]. Third track Illumination is perhaps the first most Macesque on the album, and it's hardly surprising to get this. Fourth That's The Way That Love Goes is similar and a clear pop ditty in its title and brisk chorus.

Stand-out track is fifth Stars Are Crazy with its opening, beautiful and idiosyncratic Taylor Guitar 814ce fretwork, leading to echoing vocal in the rising melody and chorus.


The next When She Comes Down is exquisite with its vocal overdubs to produce such a glorious chorus. Seventh track Rock Away Blind continues the distinctive finger-plucked focus and has a classic descending chorus. Eigth One Take is much more adventurous and complex in its arrangement - all instruments and production undertaken by Buckinham on this wholly independent release - and also in the charged lyrics about the avarice of the song's persona, punctuated by a wonderful choric interlude followed by an equally wonderful guitar shred.

Penultimate track End Of Time is a pop masterclass, again largely in the song's chorus, and the closing Stones' song She Smiled Sweetly is sweetly unadorned in its honest and occasionally strained vocal at Lindsey's lower vocal register and I like that candour and confidence.

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