Daniel Donato's Ever-Expanding Cosmic Country Universe

At this point, words fail and only scat, accompanied by enthusiastic hand-miming over a ghost fretboard, will do. “Doodala-doodala-didala-doodala-didala-doodala-daaahhh.…” He leans closer for a second, peering deeply into his phone screen to add, “It’s on the neck pickup,” then resumes his previous position. “I remember looping this piece of audio over and over because it was such bad-ness. It was like, how could a guitar possibly do that?”

Fast forward 18 years to 2025. Donato was working on his third full-length album, Horizons, with his band Cosmic Country at Sputnik Sound in Nashville. Two of the album’s most striking songs, “Chore” and “Down Bedford,” start out sounding like standard country tunes, but, over their considerable lengths (more than 11 minutes for “Chore,” almost 10 for “Down Bedford”), they morph into something more akin to prog or fusion, with dramatic time signature changes, dynamic shifts, and utterly commanding guitar solos. Think of Steve Morse’s work with the Dixie Dregs and you’ll be in the right ballpark. Sitting in the control room listening back to the final takes of these songs, Donato had a realization: He was reaching a level of musical energy he’d considered impossible as a preteen listening to Slash’s “Paradise City” solo. “I thought, ‘I’m kinda doing that,’” he says.