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Paul McLaney: Diamond Side

Paul McLaney is a prolific recording artist, and has worked with a wide and impressive variety of musical friends over the years. On ‘Diamond Side’ he’s going it alone, indeed the 12 mellow tracks of acoustic guitar and voice remarkably include no overdubs or processing. McLaney is a fine fingerstyle guitarist, his playing and songwriting draw heavily on the heritage of Bert Jansch, John Martyn et al. Celtic melodies have, he says, always moved him. He uses a C6th tuning throughout, which is beautiful, but does tend to put all the music into one band of the audio colour spectrum. He also sings each song in an ultra-intimate style that makes me think of someone sitting in their lounge late at night trying to practice while not waking the person in the next room. I found myself craving a little outburst of raw passion as relief. Some of the songs might be better served by a performance that steps out to meet you, but these are all love songs, of one sort or another, and love is a very personal - late night, intimate thing.

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