Originally released in 2002 and reissued on vinyl in 2024.

Recorded at home and mostly alone (The Verlaines’ Graeme Downes provides lush string arrangements), co-founder of The Clean David Kilgour once called A Feather in the Engine, his first album for Merge, “the most solo LP I’ve made.” Interpolating his genius for guitar pop through acoustic guitars and gorgeous instrumentals, its melodies unfold gently, suggesting that the 13 songs here, written over the course of four years, were searching Kilgour as much as he was searching them. The dichotomy between A Feather in the Engine’s pop songs and its instrumentals fascinates the ear, drawing the listener closer and closer to Kilgour’s virtuosic guitar playing when his lyrics aren’t imparting his breezy charm.