To be honest, I got tired of Hawthorne’s A Strange Arrangement album pretty quickly. Mind you I was a supporter originally – I championed those first released songs before they made it to the heart-shaped vinyl, ripped any shreds of new and/or commercially unavailable audio from youtube and radio broadcasts, put my friends on to it, etc. But when the album came it hit my house and my ipod with less a bang than a whimper. It’s not that the album was flat out bad, yet it didn’t really resonate. Older singles were still good, some of the new songs were almost as good, that’s about it. There was something sneakily disengeneous about the whole thing, as if it was a work of somebody concientiously trying hard to imitate the sound of soul as opposed to actually creating it organically. Maybe I’m being too harsh and snobby… I’m well aware that A Strange Arrangement was embrased by many who are far better versed in the the genre than I. To my humble ears there was simply better new soul music made last year, both of the retro and the forward-thinking variety. I’d rather just listen to Lee Field’s My World again, or the JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound album.

Anyway (rant over), one of the things that I did enjoy about the album was the tremendous closer Green Eyed Love. Mayer’s falsetto sounded good here, but the real draw for me was the production. Specifically I was blown away by the guitar solo that kicks in around 2:18. I wasn’t alone in this sentiment, when the song first debuted on Benji B’s show there was talk of much air guitarring in the studio. I was hoping that if the song was ever released as a single Stones Throw would honor the old tradition of putting the instrumtal on the flipside, as opposed to the modern trend of tacking on a handfull of random remixes. As it turns out they did both.

I wont try to describe what it sounds like, let’s just say if the words ‘guitar solo’ have any appeal you should probably check it out. Mind you, the first two minutes before it hits aren’t bad either.

Mayer Hawthorne – Green Eyed Love (instrumental)

Go HERE to check out and/or buy the rest of the songs on this single.