by Gianluigi Marsibilio (@gmarsibilio)
Mikal Cronin in the Seeker builds a rough geometry, but functional, to render the record one of the most interesting alt-folk works of the year. The Mikal sound intertwines with a nostalgic plot that rises in intimate songs like "On The Shelf" but also turns on in scratching folk passages like "Caravan". The record plays on pieces that are antinomies, different languages that meet, touch and reflect, as in a freshwater lake.
Seeker can be broken down into sound units that, when aggregated, form a simple and effective design. The sounds are icons of a universe of immediate identification: everything in the work is perfectly attributable to Cronin as an artist. The album's manifesto is Cronin's refuge at Idyllwild, where he finds the peace of mind needed to overcome the creative blocks. His is a David Thoreau escape, but Seeker's paths, although more beaten and predictable, are personal and fascinating.
The songs, as explained before, move in opposition, we can listen to it when we pass from the disruptive force of "Guardian Well" to the dreamy quiet, in the initial part, of a song like "Lost a Year". In the album, there is the musical journey made with Ty Segall, but also the unbridled personalism of an author who remains faithful to himself in an almost frightening way. Cronin reasoned for thematic universes and was already intuitable from records like MCII. The new work is one more piece of a career that is revealing itself.
If in an artist's career we look for signs of breakage, discontinuity, for once we can say that it's incredibly reassuring to see how Cronin, while keeping his compass firmly on his sound principles, can record and bring out pleasant ideas, which sound familiarly right. Seeker is guitar playing that moves, breathes and exudes a unique intimacy with the instrument.
Cronin presents a record that perhaps has a retro attitude, but there is no pity or conservatism in the words and intentions of the singer-songwriter. In Seeker there is only so much need to give free reign to propulsion to self-destruction, that from the most intimate ashes of the soul, finds a new meaning of a rebirth.