Saturday, July 2, 2011

Mike Doughty-Skittish

Skittish is the first solo album from Mike Doughty, the former lead singer of Soul Coughing, a band I love and adore. Soul Coughing is a sort of prickly oddly-shaped thing jutting out into the landscape of 1990's alternative (whatever that means). They sort of defied description. Mike Doughty's solo work is a bit of a departure from his Soul Coughing days, but not so much that you wouldn't know it's the same guy. He still has that awesome raspy voice that once told you to "step aside and let the man go through", but on Skittish it's accompanied by acoustic guitar and nothing else. Skittish doesn't sound like acoustic Soul Coughing. It sounds like Mike Doughty picked up an acoustic guitar during the waning hours of a party at your house and just started playing around. It's what would happen if James Joyce was an "acoustic guitar at the party" guy. At any rate, I like this album a whole lot. For an album that has just one instrument and one voice, Skittish is very sonically intriguing. Check it out. You might dig it. I know I do.

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