The Water Wheel [LP]

Kennebec - The Water Wheel [LP]

Kennebec is the creative vessel of Portland-based composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Eric Phillips, whose work delivers a lush, boundary-pushing symphonic blend of globally inspired American chamber-folk, ambient jazz, gospel, new age, and alternative hip-hop. Following collaborations with artists such as Samuel T. Herring, Sudan Archives, Yazz Ahmed, Joe Armon-Jones, and Alfa Mist, and scoring for the 2024 Oscar-nominated film 'The Holdovers' and Barack Obama's Netflix series 'Working,' Phillips returns with 'Listen,' the first single to be taken from new album 'The Water Wheel,' a conceptually rich third album exploring impermanence, love, and the cycles of time. A de facto concept album about impermanence and the cyclical nature of life on Earth, 'The Water Wheel' was born from a period of significant change in Phillips' life. After falling in love, Phillips struggled to reconcile his newfound happiness with the existential anxiety that comes from living in a world that's never felt more unstable. As the world around him became more uncertain, Phillips found himself gravitating, as both a listener and a creator, to music that is inherently more and more soothing. Locking himself away in his home studio, he found a tonic in the creation of 'The Water Wheel'; an album that's a settling, cathartic celebration of life, meant as a balm for our chaotic times. It's an acknowledgement that at once things never end, they only begin again, yet they're always changing and evolving, never staying the same, and the omnipresent contrast between impermanence and timelessness. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than in the album's first single, 'Listen'. An instant earworm, the initial spark for 'Listen' came from Phillips improvising a guitar riff over a James Brown break. After much evolution, it grew into what we hear today: an acoustic beat-driven wonder with a soaring chorus and the kind of melody that you're destined to remember for a long time. Lyrically, 'Listen' is also one of the first tracks in Kennebec's repertoire that carries Phillips' own written voice. While he'd historically recorded other vocalists, this album was the first he wrote lyrics for. He'd long been attempting to process his own thoughts of impermanence, love and fears of loss; and, in the midst of these cycles in his own life, he found himself searching for solace in the written word, documenting the timeless changing of the seasons in both a literal and metaphorical sense, and trying to remember to feel the timeless amidst the tumult without turning any of it away. ''This was the first album where I wrote lyrics, and I found myself writing about the tension between the beauty and the fear that can come with falling in love,'' says Phillips. ''In 'Listen', I liked how the lyric ''might fall in'' mirrors the descending minor chord-it carries a sense of uncertainty, of hesitation. But the song ultimately resolves - allowing oneself to let go into the love. At its heart, it's about being quiet enough to Listen, and open enough to receive.'' Musically, 'The Water Wheel' is Phillips' most accomplished record to date. A globally inspired work, with inspiration drawing from Yazz Ahmed's Bahraini roots, Brazilian jazz guitar legends Luiz Bonfa, Toquinho and Arthur Verocai, Phillips' Japanese composer heroes Ryuichi Sakamoto and Toru Takemitsu, and a distinctly American sound of cinematic chamber folk and gospel, 'The Water Wheel' is a densely packed medley of sonic and lived experiences. Tracklisting: A1. Hungry Soul (feat. Alea Lorén & Co) A2. Neakahnie (feat. Miguel Atwood Ferguson & Yazz Ahmed) A3. Listen (feat. Alea Lorén & Co, MESSIAH!) A4. Transform (feat. Charles Overton) A5. The First of the Salmonflies A6. The Water Wheel (feat. Miguel Atwood Ferguson) B1. Cycles B2. Moonlight and Shadow (feat. Alea Lorén & Co, MESSIAH!) B3. Obstacles - Opportunies B4. Wind in the Night (feat. Alea Lorén & Co) B5. Hungry Soul Reprise (feat. Alea Lorén & Co) ________________________________________ ''''The record is a beguiling journey through dream-like and inviting textures... it is awash with an atmosphere of content and peaceful sincerity. Phillips creates a lively and colorful soundscape that feels as modern as it does ancient. It's a testament to Phillips' composition skills that he manages to bring together such a wide range of instruments and techniques in a way that avoids chaos and instead finds a peaceful and relaxing atmosphere. A brilliant, accomplished debut, Departure is a magnetic and beautiful album that signals the arrival or a rising new talent'' Future Music - ________________________________________ ''While Eric Phillips has only been releasing cinematic instrumental soundscapes under the name Kennebec since 2020, his enchanting works have garnered attention and led to a number of incredible collaborations.'' KEXP - ________________________________________ ''There's a hushed euphoria to the whole record; it's a dreamy, glistening soundscape where classical guitar, ngoni, kalimba, piano, flutes and more weave in and out of the light, with subtle electronic touches and nods to Balkan-influenced sounds. It is, ultimately, a record that is as much about texture as it is about melody.'' Crack Magazine - ________________________________________ ''On his second LP, Kennebec creates soundscapes that melodize the distance, the expanse, the longing and the striving of the ego on the path to the greatest possible form of self-discovery.'' HHV Mag - ________________________________________ ''Kennebec EP's album cover and musical themes makes one think of the ocean, the mountains, trees and nature. ''Depending on the Tide'' almost has a taoist feeling to it, much like in the spirit of Alan Watts, Lao Tzu or Bruce Lee. Go with the flow (or in this case, the tide,) as the Taoists always say, and let go of trying to control nature.'' -Trerence the Dream Mediym -