Conor Lynch – “Slow Country” | Single Review
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Devil Town Tapes
I’m not sure if it’s because I was born and raised in the backwoods of Western Washington state, grew up around my father’s affinity for country-adjacent folk musicians like James Taylor, or some secret third thing, but I have somehow always found myself in the presence of music with some type of “twang.” However, like many misguided white folk, I also found myself throwing out the all-too-common “I like all music except rap and country” rhetoric in my youth, but as the years have grown and my tastes have expanded, I have delved into the former and reclaimed the latter for myself. I still avoid your pop- or stadium-level country acts, but seeing how country is an umbrella genre, I have broadened my horizons and found elements of the genre I now embrace and appreciate all their own. So naturally, when the opportunity arose to review a new “beautiful alt-country” single, I jumped at the chance.
“Slow Country,” the latest single from Detroit-based singer/songwriter Conor Lynch, takes the listener to a cool, breezy place to help them forget their troubles and pass the ever-decelerating minutes. Structurally simple, the song sleepily glides through four quick vocal lines accompanied by fuzzy acoustic guitar tones and wistful pedal steel to amplify the calm and collected feelings evoked through the lyrics. Despite the textures of the track being rather thin, the instrumentation employed by Lynch only adds to this theme of simplicity. The line “Don’t know how long I can stay / ‘Least a minute lasts an hour in this place” perfectly articulates the feeling of sitting down with this gentle country jam – your troubles melting away for what feels like much longer than two and a half minutes. This feeling is amplified even further when watching the beautiful one-take music video that accompanies the single, in which the camera slowly pulls out from a close-up of Lynch to reveal a sea of bright orange trees perched on the edge of a Detroit cityscape. Lackadaisical, nostalgic piano notes fade in, mirroring the dominant guitar line as the song concludes, and all that’s left to do is hit replay for another few minutes of bliss.
I love that within the realm of DIY, so many genres and subgenres exist together across a myriad of talented artists simply making the music they want to make. Acts like Conor Lynch prove that there is plenty of room for these easy-going, alt-country excursions that defy the expectations and stigma surrounding the genre. I think I speak for most when I say sometimes all you need is to find a cool spot in the shade, put your feet up, and take in the world's splendor. I’m so grateful that Conor is here to help guide us there.
Ciara Rhiannon (she/her) is a pathological music lover writing out of a nebulous location somewhere in the Pacific Northwest within close proximity of her two cats. She consistently appears on most socials as @rhiannon_comma, and you can read more of her musical musings over at rhiannoncomma.substack.com.
