David Kilgour cleans up

It's all go again for David Kilgour, the man some still think of as "that guy in the Clean", reports GRAHAM REID.

It's a wet day in Dunedin and David Kilgour has a piece of skirting board for more of the ongoing house repairs. It's just another day at the office because Kilgour - guitarmeister in the twentysomething Clean and with a series of creditable solo albums behind him - works from home.

He's also been sending out copies of his new solo album A Feather in the Engine which was largely recorded or demoed in his home studio, where he now has the luxury of some impressive technology.

"Years ago Robert Scott [Clean bassist and former Bats frontman] and I and Fish Street studio went thirds on a 24-track, so I've had that in the house the past few years with all the bits and pieces that go with it.

"Fish Street didn't close down but we put everything in storage, so I've got some of that equipment and have taught myself to be an engineer.

"In many ways this is the most solo LP I've made yet because I've written and recorded it at home, and maybe it's a bit more eclectic for that reason because I've had the time and opportunity to go to work every day.

"There's also quite a bit of sound-manipulation to make standard instruments sound a bit odder, because I've not only had the luxury of a 24-track, but have an eight-track and a four-track. So I've played around with tape machines and linked them up.

"I'm obviously not doing so much in the studio right now with the album being finished, but previously I would try and write or play or record something every day. I try to treat it as a job and go to work."

Enjoyable work it must be, too, if A Feather in the Engine is any measure. It calls in cello, piano, keyboards and violin alongside Kilgour's customary armoury of guitars and, as with much of his solo work, adopts a more intimate mood than the often-spiralling guitar sound of the Clean. In places, it bears the hallmarks of Here Come the Cars, his first solo album of a decade ago.

"I think it is quite eclectic but somehow holds together, which is more of a fluke than anything else. But I always live with an album a bit and dick around with the running order to get it right.

"I almost put out an LP about three years ago but for various different reasons it got delayed and I had time to think about it. I realised I was in no rush, so I've lived with a few of these songs for quite a long time.

"I certainly threw some aside I thought were great three years ago. The first half of the track I Caught You actually predates the Heavy Eights LP [of late-90s]. It was something I never committed to and it just hung around, so I gave it to [engineer] Nick Roughan who made another piece out of it and we jammed them together. And of course the first track is September 98.

"But it's right across the board. Some is new because I collaborated with Nick when we mastered it and came up with a couple of new bits and pieces, so maybe in the past six months a third of it was written and completed."

Out of that historical diversity is a distinctively Kilgour album which he takes on the local road with his four-piece band, and then onward to the States as a solo act, where he'll meet old friends and college/cult favourites Lambchop in Nashville.

Members of the 13-piece Lambchop - trimmed to a tidy 11-piece for the Stateside tour - will back Kilgour and he'll also join them as a guitarist. For someone still known as "that guy in the Clean" despite his solo work, it's enjoyable to be an almost invisible band member.

"It's lovely playing other people's music. It's kinda stressful too, because it's not something you're used to and you have to use another part of your brain."

Kilgour met the Lambchop conglomerate when he toured with the equally cultish Yo La Tengo. Since then they have become friends. He'll have time in Nashville in rehearsals before the month-long tour and there's talk of the Clean reactivating in April - "believe it or not".

But with the album Getaway recorded only last year, we'd be forgiven for thinking the Clean were never inactive.

"Everyone's got a different slant on that one," he laughs. "I think Flying Nun want to get [New York-based brother/drummer] Hamish back for their 21st-birthday in March, so if that happens we'll spend that month trying to write new stuff.

"We've got a tight schedule, but might try for a short tour at the end of April, which we'd like to do because there's always been huge gaps between LPs, so if we could follow up with an LP or EP so close to Getaway, that would be good."

Kilgour admits that despite his long solo career, everything he's done here and overseas has always been in the shadow of the Clean. Not that it worries him now - he concedes it used to a little - and he sees it as just another aspect of his life.

And life is good. There is ongoing interest in what he's doing in the States - "they still see New Zealand as exotic and have a hunger for new music" - and he is encouraged that some of his Flying Nun generation, such as Shayne Carter, Graeme Downes, Robert Scott and Martin Phillipps, are continuing to make music.

Even after all these years, much to his pleasant surprise, he's still making a buck out of the job which requires six strings and inspiration.

"This is work, for sure, although it's still something I love doing and the past 12 months have been great. Every year I think this is the one where I'm going to have to get a real job, but something always comes along that stops me."

* David Kilgour, Kings Arms, Saturday February 16.