Mac McCaughan

★★★★

The Sound Of Yourself MERGE. CD/DL/LP

Merge label-owner and Superchunk leader’s second solo album.

As the leader of Superchunk and their lo-fi cousins Portastatic, Ralph ‘Mac’ McCaughan has firm indie credentials. As Merge owner, he has furthered the careers of acts from Bob Mould to Lambchop. Now, it’s time for him to really blossom on the solo front. Self-written and self-produced but featuring a clutch of guests, The Sound Of

Yourself is the sound of a man stretching out. There are instrumentals, such as the Bowie-in-Berlin style (plus

harp) dreamy opener Moss Light and 36 & Rain. There is the twangsome, harmony and percussion-laden I Hear A Radio and there is even the pulsating, all-out pop loveliness of Dawn Bends, which features the members of Yo La Tengo. The highlight, perhaps, is Sleep Donor, which finds Mac warbling “I hear a footstep in the hall/When there should be no one there at all,” before things really take a spooked, distorted turn. What breadth of vision McCaughan has.