The very talented songwriter Liam Betson has announced that he’ll release a new album, Music For A While, next month. It’s the follow-up to 2016’s Austerity Measures, and he’s introducing it with the dreamy 13-and-a-half-minute-long single “Dramatic Reenactment.” A persistent drum machine patter and watery synths serve as the backdrop for Betson’s monologue, which is concerned with what life path we take and what reflections we’ll have when we get there. It’s partly a self-conflicted reckoning about the nature of songwriting itself, the process of crystallizing moods and emotions into words.

“Pull back the camera to my memory/ Now close up, closer still/ Until I wake up and the morning construction begins again,” he sings. But that naming of it has an undeniable effect: “But if you say it is what it is/ Then take a knife to what it is,” go the last words of the song, washed away in a glimmer of keys. The music itself has a way of lulling you, but Betson’s words give you a lot to think about while you’re slipping away. Listen below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Obstacle Course”
02 “Often But Not Always”
03 “Dramatic Reenactment”
04 “Tend To Forget”
05 “Off With His Mind”
06 “Shall All Your Cares Beguile”

Music For A While is out 6/15. Pre-order it here.