MacGregor Burns - “What I’ve Been Looking For”
Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter MacGregor Burns has just released the slow-burning ballad, “What I’ve Been Looking For.”
“What I’ve Been Looking For” explores the experience and feeling of finding clarity and love after many years of searching. Musically, the track sits comfortably in an early 1970s rock bracket. This is not stadium bombast, more of a fractured, raw sermon that wouldn’t feel out of place just being played on acoustic guitar on a porch somewhere in the country.
The arrangement is relatively bare bones, or ‘classic,’ which allows a loose, meditative vibe to be fostered. Pushed by a soft percussive groove and a quietly magnetic bass line, every musical element on top has a pleasant mellow, amber glow. Whether it is the drifting string arrangements or the rounded intimacy of the electric guitar. There is no rush, no filler, no climax. Instead “What I’ve Been Looking For” lingers in a moment of bittersweet melancholy.
MacGregor Burns performs the ballad in a way that feels as if he has been carrying a weight on his shoulders for many years. A weather worn storyteller. Soulfully tender and unmistakably human, the delivery leans heavily into phrasing and inflection to create an off-kilter truth that is truly powerful.