From Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” to Golden Earring’s “Radar Love” to Sturgill Simpson’s album/film concept Sound & Fury, the figure of the lonely, long-distance traveller is an iconic image and The Muster Point Project’s latest single features such a character.
Their protagonist is an “Alaska Highwayman” driving the long white miles of the far north with only his thoughts for company, using that quiet, meditative time to process the loss of a loved one to cancer, confronting the silence and isolation left in their wake, something reflected in the landscape he is driving through. As Point man Kevin Franco says, “Difficult situations affect people in different ways, some process it by getting in the car, cranking up the tunes and zoning out… for twelve hundred miles.”
It’s a masterclass in the slow build; an unfussy yet precisely perfect beat joins with a pulsing bassline to provide the initial impetus, soon joined by deft guitar licks, chiming sonics, and, finally, as the chorus arrives, swathes of six-string power, before settling back into its seductive, straightforward groove.
It’s a driving song in every sense. A song about the character eating up the miles, a song that runs on a driving groove, and a song that makes for the perfect soundtrack to your own journey. Less than a week into the new year, and The Muster Point Project is working its magic already. That has got to be a good omen for the year to come, donchathink?
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