Nashville based, Juno Award-winning musician, singer-songwriter, producer, sideman, label owner and podcast host Steve Dawson (in short, an all-round roots-based talent) is making up for lost solo recording time in 2022.
Steve Dawson’s critically acclaimed solo album Gone, Long Gone, released earlier this year, was his first collection of song’s since Solid States and Loose Ends six years ago (Dawson, who has also dipped in to Hawaiian music, jazz and blues, also released the delightful and at times delicate acoustic instrumental album Lucky Hand in 2018).
It’s also the first of three new albums that will see the light of day this year (courtesy of writing a large volume of songs over the pandemic and lockdown periods).
The second of those albums, Phantom Threshold, will be released on August 12th
While Gone, Long Gone explored Dawson’s love of roots music in the folk and blues tradition, both in song and instrumental, Phantom Threshold is a fully instrumental release exploring some deep and elusive musical territory (in many ways the album resumes the musical conversations started in Telescope, his pedal steel-based instrumental album from 2008). The core band (dubbed The Telescope 3 in reference to the release) on Phantom Threshold is comprised of Jeremy Holmes (bass), Chris Gestrin (keys) and Jay Bellerose (drums/percussion).
All of the tracks are Steve Dawson originals, excepting 'The Waters Rise' (a co-write with Fats Kaplin) and a woozy, lysergic cover of The Beach Boys 'You Still Believe In Me,' written by Brian Wilson.
Phantom Threshold plays like a motion picture soundtrack; there’s a story arc that begins as 'Cozy Corner' achieves lift-off with its mixture of sliding strings and celestial keyboards that owe as much to early seventies Pink Floyd as they do to John Fahey.
The album continues to sketch out vivid frontiers until, finally, Steve Dawson’s collective musical visions are deconstructed with 'Whirlwind,' an evocative scratchy solo piece (played on a Weissenborn with paper taped across the strings) that takes the listener home.
Black Hen Music
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