Audiopile Review: Saskatchewan-based guitarist and sound artist Michael Scott Dawson offers up his fifth album, Guitar, Solo, a limited edition release pressed specifically for his just launched tour in Japan. Since 2021, Dawson has been bringing to life the sound of the prairies through his work in the pastoral ambient-jazz outfit Peace Flag Ensemble and his quickly accumulating solo releases, becoming a rising figure in Canada’s sprawling experimental underground. It’s this continued inspiration of Saskatchewan’s vastness that Dawson draws upon once again for Guitar, Solo, which is all wide vistas and clear sight lines, the kind of pleasant ambient music that a passive listen might come off as simplistic or shallow. But despite how utterly light and effortless it feels, stick your head below the surface and elaborate worlds await. Each track is dense with Dawson’s intertwining, languid guitar solos, looped and layered atop each other with a such an exquisite Frippertronic-like delicacy that it eventually becomes a unified body. And it’s an amorphous and slippery one, Dawson capturing the fluid, unpredictable breeze as it wind’s through golden fields of wheat. Is this the sound of Ambient Canadiana? Hell yes, it is. Only a handful available, ordered direct from the label, and we’ll be the only physical retail spot in Canada for this release!

***

Guitar, Solo is Michael Scott Dawson’s fifth LP since 2020. In just five years he has crafted a tender and nostalgic body of ambient work anchored by frayed melodies, tape loops, and pastoral field recordings.

Following last years The Tinnitus Chorus, an ambitious album of collaborations with artists from around the globe (including M Sage, Yutaka Hirasaka, Eli Winter, Suso Saiz, and his band mates in Peace Flag Ensemble), Dawson returns with a beautiful solo record of ambient guitar and environmental sound. He considers it to be a sister album to Music For Listening.

Subtitled 日本ツアーテープ (Japan Tour Tape) the album is a limited release cassette and LP in support of his forthcoming tour of Japan.
Copies are only available at shows, select Japanese record stores, Audiopile, and direct from We Are Busy Bodies.