Finding You Again

Chronique

Forty-one years after releasing his last solo album, and forty-six years after "Elusive Butterfly" briefly made him a star, Bob Lind has unexpectedly returned with a new album, and the liner notes include an essay from the reclusive singer/songwriter titled "I Hate Recording!" Well, that gives some idea as to why he's been avoiding the studio these past few decades (and his notes discuss his philosophical objections to recording in detail), but if it seems curious that all it took was a long-distance collaboration with Jamie Hoover of the Spongetones to change Lind's mind about making an album, that does appear to be the genesis of Finding You Again, Lind's surprise comeback. More than four decades after his retreat from the spotlight, Lind's music sounds at once fresh and familiar -- the lyrics have the same elliptical, poetic bent as his work of the '60s, and most of the time they're just as pleasantly cryptic as you recall, but the melodies and arrangements suggest Lind has been making a real effort to keep up with the times. If the results sometimes sound like an oddball fusion of '70s soft rock and benign new age meandering, at the very least, you can't say he's trying to mimic the folk-rock of his best-known work. By Lind's admission, some of these tracks were simply demos dressed up with overdubs by Hoover, while others were more carefully constructed from the ground up by the two collaborators; this may be the reason Lind sounds noticeably more ragged on some tunes than others, though his voice is in fine shape throughout, and even the more chaotic moments show Lind still has some fire in the belly and a desire to express himself. And Lind did indeed find a sympathetic partner in Hoover, who gives this music an accompaniment that's tasteful, evocative, and well-crafted. Nothing on Finding You Again sounds like a lost classic (and as good as Hoover is, he's no Jack Nitzsche), but for a guy who hasn't made an album since Richard Nixon was president, Bob Lind doesn't sound the least bit rusty on this album, and even appears to have learned a few things during his downtime.

© Mark Deming /TiVo