For those of us in the northern hemisphere, Sunday 21 June marks the summer solstice, when daylight hours stretch to their longest. To celebrate, here is The Observer’s pick of the best tracks that span at least six minutes in run time – double the average length of a pop song.
Solstice folklore often invokes the supernatural; malevolent fairies cause mischief, while bonfires provide protection from spirits. In Big Day Coming, organ flourishes and bending guitars sit below Ira Kaplan’s whispery, off-kilter vocals, building a hidden world for the listener to occupy for the next seven minutes.
The world turns on its axis; a record spins on the turntable; time is always shifting. On her 2024 album, Endlessness, Sinephro builds intricate loops of ambient electronica and jazz. Continuum 2’s seven-minute runtime weaves together brushing cymbals, arpeggiated pianos and lingering notes from a flugelhorn.
As we reach the longest day, the cynics among us whisper that it’s downhill to darkness from here. These listeners might identify with the premise of Josh Tillman’s eight-and-a-half minute meditation on the embarrassment of living, set to swooning saxophones and drum breaks.
Taken from her charming live album, Miles of Aisles, this song is eased over the six-minute mark by some introductory crowdwork, where Mitchell invites her audience to sing along. What follows is intimate and gorgeous: plucky guitar and a sea of voices reminding us that we’re “captive on the carousel of time”.
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This six-minute hip-shaker from Nigerian electronic pioneer Steve Monite contains all the elements needed for a crowd-pleasing sundown boogie, including futuristic synthesisers, liberal use of drum machine effects, and lyrics longing for a lover to put out the fire burning in his soul.