Dan Michaelson and The Coastguards - Distance (2014)

Dan Michaelson has made a bit of a miniature masterpiece in Distance. It's just 30 minutes long, comprises only eight songs, and has a sonic palette that stretches little further than pedal steel, acoustic and electric guitars, bass, brushed drums and occasional strings. Atop that sits Michaelson's voice, veering between a croak and a croon. It's a heartbreak album, stately of pace and downcast in mood, but it never feels depressing. The melodies are too sharp for that, and the arrangements too well judged. And Michaelson has an eye for the telling details in the end of a relationship: "I'll slip my keys under the door," he sings on Every Step, "I don't need them anymore." It's a cousin to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, if Cave were absorbed with everyday life, rather than turning everything into part of the lineage of music mythology. Hugely recommended.