Out walking.
An hour on foot and nowhere to be. Five records that keep a pace instead of setting one.
Walking music is not driving music slowed down. A car gives you a fixed speed and a windscreen; walking gives you a rhythm you're already making, and the records that work are the ones that fall in with it rather than trying to lead. Nothing here needs your full attention, and nothing here wastes it either.
The picks
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1
Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes · 2008
Fleet Foxes' debut is built on harmony and open space, and it moves at exactly the speed of someone not in a hurry. The most literally outdoors-sounding record on this list.
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2
Graceland
Paul Simon · 1986
Graceland is a walking record because the bass never stops walking. Forty years on it is still the most purely propulsive thing Paul Simon made, and it never once rushes you.
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3
Remain in Light
Talking Heads · 1980
Remain in Light is polyrhythm as forward motion — every part interlocking, nothing driving. Put it on at the start of a long walk and the walk reorganises itself around it.
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4
For Emma, Forever Ago
Bon Iver · 2007
For Emma, Forever Ago is the cold-weather option: sparse, close-miked, made in actual isolation. Better on a walk you took to be alone than on one you took for company.
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5
There Is Love in You
Four Tet · 2010
Four Tet's There Is Love in You is patient electronic music with a pulse rather than a beat. Built in long arcs, which is what an hour on foot actually needs.