Long Slow Distance [LP], Michael Dawson Scott, Vinyl

Long Slow Distance is an album about finding peace, and making peace where it can't be found. It's inspired by change, grief, acceptance, forgiveness, love, and running. Dawson began running around the same time he started making records. At this point it's unclear where one practice ends and the other begins. The album's title has become the ethos he's embraced for all things in life. Long Slow Dance unravels the woven collage of his previous work. Here each song consists of three long guitar takes, panned across the stereo-field with minimal overdubs. ""I remember my grandmother always kept a rain barrel on the farm. Just a simple vessel that served as a means for gathering water for the garden and the flowers. I wanted to instill that sentiment on this record. Other than some panning and recreational EQing, the computer was just a vessel to gather sounds."" There is a distant grace to the album. A soft expanse, a quiet contrast. Guitars dissolve and then recalibrate. Sparse melodic motifs bloom and fracture. Warm chords clash and make amends. Alpenglow textures shimmer against tones that feel weathered by salt air. The songs are lightly propulsive, yet drift at a glacial pace. Fields and artifacts ground the material, like keeping your eyes on the horizon. Long Slow Distance feels intuitive, sentimental, and like Dawson is one step closer to whatever distance he is chasing.