(you can click on the picture to read the full article  -- its in italian, mind. we've google translated it below)

Have you ever imagined to find in the shoes of Jim Carrey in a scene from "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind"? To choose which memories to erase from your memory?Disappointment, embarrassment, wounds still open ... 'd Still be ourselves, without that portion of our painful past?

Even Scheerlinck Lieven, Belgian songwriter based in Barcelona, has tried to make a list of memories to erase. But now, caught in a nostalgic atmosphere of a page of Jonathan Franzen, was found to hold in my hands an old photograph, and those memories that seeks to remove unexpectedly took the form of a song. Here, his songs are like that: they are like the pages of a diary, written with an urgent authenticity of a note must be entered. Moments stopped in time not to allow dissolution: choose to keep only a portion would be like betraying oneself.

Nothing but a singer of songs, just like Johnny Cash proclaimed the verses of Tim O'Connell: thus defines itself Scheerlinck since the choice of their moniker. Songs written straight off, without too many frills, recorded immediately shared through a MySpace page. "I write these little songs and register in one or two days at most. I like the rough feeling of the song on the tape when you write and record in a hurry." A philosophy that inspired the music of Scheerlinck also in his second album named A Singer Of Songs, "Old Happiness", a collection of dozens of snapshots taken between 2008 and 2009.

From the title track - ballad that starts in light and shade for those of instruments in the finale - the tracks of "Old Happiness" have a deep whisper of Barzin and Damien Jurado, dusty atmosphere which seems to refer to a Conor Oberst stripped of emphasis . Stories solitary, nocturnal confessions, sketches for voice and guitar in which the monochrome background is played throughout the nuances, just like in sepia tones dell'artwork designed by Sally Brownlie. As in previous "I Dig For Gold", the echo of the voices of Barcelona is the backdrop to the scene: the town has always been very present in all the stories alive and story, through the deserted streets that night, buzz of the day, the sun and shade throughout the year. "

But those are mostly reflections Scheerlinck enclosed within the walls of a room: a quiet space in which to be wounded by the backlash of reality. "Gradually I got used to the silence. He became a loyal companion. A well of inspiration and peace. It keeps me focused. Sometimes the loneliness is a source of truth ...".
A solitude but, through the path of the disc, welcomes the company to open up some valuable collaborations: the voice of singer Tiny Ruins New Zealand, along with a quiver of cello, silk wraps as the slow gait of "Road To Nowhere" ( in Scheerlinck offered exclusively to OndaDrops the first demo as a free download), the counterpoint to the melody of Madrid and Ana Franco delicately framed "Rabbit Hole" and the duet with Craven Canary to the tune of "Wrath" takes the emotion of an apocryphal Swell Season.

The last light of day, the wind in the trees, the river water lapping at her feet: Scheerlinck plunges into nature with a romantic look in search of the sublime. "It's a picture around which / I would happily build a home," sings the arpeggios to the punctuation Iron & Wine of "Slow River". Among the waltz sleepwalking "Cavalry Walks" jolt of electricity and the acceleration of "I Shall Break That Horse", the trend piano caressing "Lonely One" leave it to the breaks to talk over the music.

The openings to the tune of episodes like "The Bunker" and "Them & You" reflect the experience of parallel Scheerlinck as part of Birdcircus, training alt-folk-inspired Sparklehorse.But the songs signed A Singer Of Songs have an accent different denominations are no defenses, as the final "Pretty Lies", so personal that have remained locked in a drawer until a friend convinced Scheerlinck not to publish it. "It's the first time I really started writing for myself," he says. "It was quite therapeutic, to be honest, and still is." Her songs are like a darkened room, where daylight filters through the windows ajar position of waiting: "Happiness too old to feel / It is time for better times."

7/10