Long Cool World

Under the North Americans banner, Patrick McDermott has explored a range of sonic textures, from the growling drones and abstract channel-flipping of 2014s No_No to the meandering American primitive guitar figures on 2018s Going Steady. After signing with Third Man, the project morphed into a duo with the inclusion of Portland pedal steel player Barry Walker. Almost unrecognizable from McDermotts earlier work, their 2020 collaboration, Roped In, was laconic and ethereal, a languid conversation between two improvisers. The duos follow-up (and McDermotts fifth overall as North Americans) follows a similar pattern and is, if anything, even sleepier than its predecessor. Ostensibly, Long Cool World is an album of acoustic guitar (nylon- and steel-stringed) and pedal steel instrumentals, largely improvised, and without a lot of definition. The songs move across the stereo field in humid, pink-clouded drifts, occasionally whipping up a small storm, but mostly ambling at their own easy pace. Underneath the surface of Walkers shimmering steel tones and McDermotts circular patterns, however, are finer details worth listening for. Tracks like "Think of Me as a Place" and "Crossed Up" are surprisingly dense affairs, underpinned by a mild chaos of effects and murmuring static. The manipulation is so subtle, its hard to pick out what, apart from the guitars, is happening in each song. At its most tranquil, like on the lovely "The Last Rockabilly," Long Cool World is like a warm wind, gently pushing listeners down an unknown but inviting path. Its ambient music for slow walking and daydreaming with enough organic elements to keep it loosely tethered to reality. ~ Timothy Monger