Living With Yourself

iTunes Review

Here's the deal, astral plane addicts: as bottomless as Mark McGuire's back catalog is, the Emeralds guitarist considers Living With Yourself his first official solo album. Not just because Peter Rehberg's label (Editions Mego) gave it a proper CD/LP pressing; the record's also deeply personal, right down to its slide-show sleeve and prismatic meditations on the persistence of memory. As McGuire's color-wheel chords fade in and out of every shaky, sepia-toned frame, we're essentially taken on a tour of his subconscious, from the home video collages that bookend "The Vast Structure of Recollection" and "Brothers (For Matt)" to the sudden bursts of blissful feedback in "Brain Storm (For Erin)" and "Clear the Cobwebs." Much less experimental than Emeralds and much more hopeful than its title suggests, Living With Yourself is sentimental but never sappy. As McGuire's proven in the past, it's all about the art of letting go.