It’s no small feat that Ali McGuirk’s new record is worthy of a few Fred Tackett cameos.
Set your stereo to tracks to three and four on McGuirk’s album Til It’s Gone and you can parse out the groundwork of her fine-tuned groove: Little Feat’s strain of ’60s folk — coming from Tackett’s guitar and mandolin playing — seeping into New England neo-soul, courtesy of McGuirk’s smoldering pipes. It’s the kind of ambitious overlap that the Boston-gone-Burlington artist wanted for her Signature Sounds debut, which dropped last Friday (September 16).
“This album represents a crossroads to me and my journey in music,” McGuirk reflects on Instagram. “With this project I gave myself permission to take it all a little more seriously and admit the scope of my dreams. It’s a tender and scary thing to invest so deeply in any art, but with this project I’ve decide to give all I have to the pursuit, until it’s gone. Get it?“
That hefty investment goes beyond tapping starpower for a few features (although hearing Fred Tackett “casually telling stories about sessions he did with Ringo and Harry Nilsson like it’s not a big deal” certainly is its own reward). The embers of McGuirk’s debut record Slow Burn have sparked a brilliant blaze five years later, and Til It’s Gone proves that she’s adept at taming that flame. From album opener “X Boyfriends” to feverish finale “Milk,” McGuirk’s storytelling stokes a fire that lends all nine tracks an intimate, simmering quality. Or maybe that’s just the result of following the “give all I have” fire in her belly.
Savor Til It’s Gone below, and check out McGuirk’s fall tour dates, including an album release party with Dutch ReBelle at Crystal Ballroom on October 7.
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