Music is increasingly consumed one track at a time. A song gets saved, shuffled, clipped, recommended and replaced. JP Oldfield’s Saltwater Gospel belongs to a different tradition.

Out now through Now Listen, it is built around a six-part story, so chopping it into isolated pieces changes what the release is doing. The Ferryman at the centre of the EP is not simply a character appearing in a few songs. His decisions carry from one track into the next, and the consequences accumulate.

That gives the tracklist a useful sense of progression.

“It’s Just Begun” establishes the situation. “The Preacher’s Noose” takes the Ferryman further into revenge and religious conflict. “Wash Me Away” pushes the story towards the water, while “Further from Heaven” widens the picture with the angel and the approaching flood. The final two tracks deal with what follows.

Oldfield is asking the listener to follow a sequence rather than cherry-pick the obvious single.

The subject matter helps. This is a story filled with burial, storms, scripture, punishment and death, so individual songs naturally raise questions that are answered later. Even the title points towards a larger idea, with the sea representing a force that operates according to its own cycles.

There is also no attempt to hide the fact that this is an independent project. Oldfield wrote the songs, created the linocut artwork and developed the mythology himself.

That combination makes Saltwater Gospel feel designed for an audience willing to give the whole release its proper running time.

In a culture that increasingly rewards the quickest possible listen, there is something appealing about an EP that says: start at track one and stay with it.