“I’m drawing on the urgency of the
moment,” reflects Grant-Lee Phillips. “The things that eat away in the late
hours…”
That urgency inspired the headlong rush
of Widdershins – available February
23 via Yep Roc – in which Grant-Lee Phillips invests the insight, nuance, and
wit that has distinguished his songcraft over the past three decades in a
riveting dissection of today’s fraught social landscape. Beneath the moment’s
tumultuous veneer, Phillips uncovers resonances spanning centuries – patterns
echoing from the present day to the distant past. Its twelve tracks were cut
largely live in the studio with the sharp
trio of Phillips (guitar, vocals, keyboards), Jerry Roe (drums), and Lex
Price (bass) serving as messengers. Says Phillips, “This moment is explosive,
volatile, and heightened. It’s important to me that the music reflect that...”
By turns sardonic,
provocative, and illuminating, Widdershins
(produced by Phillips and mixed by Tucker Martine) delivers its poetic truths
through Phillips’s peerless melodic sensibilities, carefully balancing
intensity and vulnerability. A now seasoned songwriter and performer, with more
than two decades' experience first as frontman of the acclaimed Grant Lee
Buffalo then as an accomplished solo artist, Phillips awakens comfort and hope
by shining light into darker corners. “I hope to express my
faith in people, my faith in the good ideas we’re capable of, and that
regardless of what opposition we face, the fact that we can surmount these
things,” he concludes. “We can stare them down, laugh at them, belittle them,
and drive the darkness back into a hole.”
Source here
No comments:
Post a Comment