Right off the bat, Dave Keir is a helluva fingerpicker, dazzling not only in his dexterity but also for moody arrangements. [...] The entire CD, 15 cuts, is a long disc that pulls you in for the entire ride, the vehicle is just Keir and a guitar. The composer, it becomes evident in the liner notes, is a misfit who must heed the muse at every given opportunity, and the dense nature of "The Year of the Sheep" gives that away, a constant interlock of swirling guitar lines and vocally leashed anger. "How Well" follows and gently pulls the listener down into a calmer place but not a more reassuring one. All "Uneasy Listening" is a moody set of pensees on, as Keir puts it, "aspirations to moonlit elopements"; "loves lost, won, aborted, discarded, and remembered"; "gods invented or merely imagined"; and a miscellany of odd subjects. The CD is intimate but rarely cozy, in a form of exposition that saw emergence in the 70s, when a plethora of LPs issued—personal, creative, offbeat, and specialized, albums designed to present idiosyncratic modes for listeners athirst for non-market products, artistic materials that explored the byways of thought and emotion. [...] © Mark S. Tucker (www.acousticmusic.com/fame)

Acoustic fingerstyle guitarist Dave Keir offers up a thoughtful and literate mix of compositions on "Uneasy Listening." Keir, an engaging Britisher who experienced some success in the 1970s recording and touring in Europe, took a decade or two holiday from the business before getting his feet wet again with this 15-track collection of provoking originals. A student of life, he sings the truth with an earnest rasp; you just know he’d be gold in a pub while sharing a pint or two. He’d no doubt share tales and observations aplenty, as he does here. His liner notes say as much about the teller as they do about the tales: reflections on "insomnia and the consequent imaginary enumeration of sheep, an aspiration to a moonlit elopement, deeds of impish devilry, dazzling daylight and Dionysian revels, husbandry and parenthood, loves won, lost, aborted, discarded and remembered, gods invented or merely imagined, and the mantras of self-help gurus." Particularly memorable tracks include "Ice On Fire" and "Yes I’m Only Guessing." © Fred Kraus (www.minor7th.com)