When Mark Mulcahy’s wife Melissa died suddenly in 2008, he was left to raise young twin daughters alone.

The American singer had carved a cult following as leader of Miracle Legion, which he followed with a string of solo records before joining the house band for Nickelodeon kids’ show, The Adventures Of Pete & Pete.

Fans in high places reached out to the musician’s musician on hearing the tragic news. Thom Yorke, The National, Michael Stipe, Dinosaur Jr, Frank Black, Frank Turner, Mercury Rev all recorded versions of Mulcahy tracks for 2009 tribute album, Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs Of Mark Mulcahy.

The thought helped. Three years later Mulcahy found the strength to get back in the studio.

Dear Mark J Mulcahy, I Love You – his first album in eight years – does not deal directly with his wife’s death. More personal tracks have been held back for another record which is 90% done and will arrive shortly, perhaps as soon as next year.

Beforehand Mulcahy decided to call up his old friends from Northampton, Massachusetts, to make an energetic record in a series of one-day sessions.

“I wanted to make a record that was more current. The one waiting is more complicated, it is more involved, more about my life at the time, my feelings, my experience. I would knock off some basics then sit there all day thinking. There was no thinking with this one. It was the unconscious.”

The songs on Dear Mark J Mulcahy, I Love You are by no means vacuous.

“It’s only thoughtless in that they are not about my own life. I wanted to write a record that was not about me, so these songs are more about other people or observations. I’ve written a lot of songs looking around the bedroom, but this is not that.”

The 11 tracks are quirky urban dramas which channel the lo-fi pop of Lou Reed and alt-country free-wheeling as much as the jangly guitars Mulcahy made his calling card in Miracle Legion.

Everybody Hustles Leo, She Makes The World Turn Backwards and He’s A Magnet are vivid paintings of characters and situations. Its gentle playfulness has charmed four-star reviews out of national newspapers and music magazines and high ratings in the online press.

For its creation, Mulcahy went to producer Henning Ohlenbusch’s home studio for “quick, interesting sessions” focused on the “here and now”.

Paul Q Kolderie (Radiohead, The Pixies, Hole) mixed the record. Ken Maiuri (formerly of Pedro The Lion) is on drums, Ohlenbusch (School For The Dead) plays bass.

“The recordings were all happy accidents. You always aim for New Mexico and end up in Canada when you do it all in one day. When you do it the other way round, you build a wall, look backwards and say to yourself, ‘We have a trumpet player coming in so we have to have this bit done’.

“With this, we were always going forwards.”

Closing the book at the end of the day means you only worry about one song at a time. The extra focus certainly gives the record an immediacy, which is fuelled in part by Mulcahy’s renewed love for singing.

Ohlenbusch’s production “cleared it out a bit, made it sound larger”. He put more music around Mulcahy’s voice, “which was great since it was a bit muddy”.

Making a difference

Before he departs we discuss the old cliché about whether music really is cathartic.

“Obviously I didn’t have much to do with Ciao and it was an enormous surprise. But it’s great that people wanted to do something and the fact they did it is even better. “I meet a lot of people because I have been playing a lot, so I see I have a profound effect on a small amount of this world.

“I like doing music and it’s been something that has helped me, so maybe if it helps me, it might help someone else who is dogged by things.”

Perhaps the problem is the word cathartic.

“Catharsis always feels so grand or important or big. When I mow my lawn and it looks great it’s the same idea: do something you do well and you can feel happy you did something. For me it is pedestrian rather than cathartic. “I like doing it and I am happy I can still do it.”