II by Spitzer Space Telescope

“It’s a compilation of everything,” Dan MacDonald (Spitzer Space Telescope) says, a record that shifts constantly in style, from rousing Dylanesque romance to joyous jigs, and that draws deep from autobiography but is unafraid to experiment with shifts into fiction.

The bracing a capella stomp of opener ‘Midwest Tribute Song’ is in the autobiographical camp. It looks back to his native Michigan, a place that “firmly shaped who I am, shapes how I frame the world,” albeit in a strange, inverted manner. “Everything was more interesting than the Midwest,” he recalls. “It’s just open country, it’s often very flat. A lot of people there would never even get out as far as New England. Places like Dublin and Australia were worlds away. It gave me that magnetism for more interesting places.” ‘Roving Is Me Pleasure’ picks up the story to find that wanderlust fulfilled, recounting MacDonald’s early travels busking his way across Ireland and Britain, “cosplaying this Kerouacian troubadour life that a Midwestener would only read about in a book.” Drawing stylistically from The Clancy Brothers at their most immediate, “there’s nothing but joy in that song.”

‘Hard Luck Johnny’ then takes a sharp left turn, a fictional account of a harsh life of poverty – with undercurrents of social commentary – inspired by old Bob Dylan bootleg recordings. He treats both his recording and the accompanying video so that resembles a strange relic, warped by time, old and yet timeless in its relevance. After this marked tonal shift comes another in ‘Field Of Men’. Here, MacDonald suddenly adopts Pete Seeger-esque sincerity as he delivers a utopian acoustic paean to the innate goodness of humanity. ‘“A lot of people like the Woody Guthrie Line, ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’, but in my opinion Pete Seeger’s mantra was the correct one – ‘This machine surrounds hate and forces it to surrender.’” He’s unafraid of such dramatic shifts in style; in fact, they’re intentional. “I got introduced to this genre through compilation albums, so I have a lot of affection for a listening experience that jumps around different colours.” Nor does he have qualms about chasing the light at a time where so much of the folk scene is turning to darkness and doom.

Take closer ‘Old Lazarus’ Harp’, for instance, a tribute to his old collective of the same name in Chicago, where the titular Biblical figure is resurrected once more to party his way around the city’s square dances and sessions, “an exact allegory for the 10 years I spent there.” A blast of direct euphoria, it’s the ideal closer to an introductory EP that succeeds in its mission to prove exactly what MacDonald’s capable of. Like a great compilation record, this is hit after hit. Or as Spitzer Space Telescope puts it himself, “why waste a track on a boring song? Why not just give them all bangers?”

Born and raised in St John’s, Michigan, but now based in London Spitzer Space Telescope (SST) is the musical moniker of professional oil painter Dan MacDonald.