Coming Up: Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country

On Friday, October 3, Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country plays at Saturn.

Nashville artist Daniel Donato has spent years developing a sound to call his own. Blending country stylings and jam-band improvisation, he’s arrived at a sometimes twangy, sometimes spacey musical amalgamation he calls Cosmic County.

Years have passed and personnel changed since he first sought the new sound, and as talents improve, it’s no surprise that the character of Cosmic Country continues to evolve as well.
“Progress is the watchword of the universe,” says Donato. “In a twofold manner, there has been evolution of progress and a revealing of progress simultaneously. Music is Living, as the Truth is Living, and it is a blessing to see Cosmic Country change on many levels.”

The latest incarnation of the Cosmic Country sound has been preserved for posterity on a new record, Horizons. Donato once said “music is a service to bring truth into people’s lives.” Now that he’s on the road with an album’s worth of new music, what truths has he set out to deliver?

“My intention is to humbly reveal the values of truth, beauty, and goodness through the vehicle that is music and the community that blossoms from it,” he says. “These values are omnipresent and always effective for illuminating our life through any particular or specific episode of space and time we find ourselves in and are called to experience.”

Far out.

What exactly does Donato’s proprietary genre sound like? It’s a fusion, and the formula varies from song to song. The band drifts cosmic with the funky “Prairie Spin,” and “Valhalla” is both spacey and groovy, reminiscent of Perpetual Groove. “Hangman’s Reel” begins with a phased electric guitar strum that wouldn’t be out of place in a ‘70s buddy cop show. You can practically see the big lapels and sideburns. The band quickly expands on the electric guitar with piano and drums, and gradually, the layers add and subtract until a dexterous fiddle steps in and we’re treated to a folksy reel.

The “Country” in Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country is well-represented, from the upbeat and twangy “Blame The Train” to the romp of “Sunshine In The Rain.” There’s plenty of room for Donato’s musical truths, too, as “See Through” tells us “Hindsight never comes for free.”
The talent on record and on stage is hard to deny, but listeners may be surprised to hear that the musicians joining Donato are relatively new to the country style. When the group’s current lineup came together, Donato’s bandmates weren’t as well-versed in genre as he was, but he considers that a boon.

“I have a lot of experience with the traditional essence of this genre and am able to create and compose from this essence with flow and ease,” he says. “With that, taking elements and styles of different musical approaches with the intention to serve tradition has actualized potentials of a unique sound and frequency; it is a dance between tradition and bringing it to a new presentation and personalization that has not ever been created before.”

Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country comes to Saturn on Friday, October 3. Doors open at 7 p.m. Music starts at 8 p.m. Get ticket’s at the venue’s website.