WALKER PHILLIPS – God’s Eye (2023, LP Guerssen Records)

RELEASE INFO:

Label: Guerssen Records

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Black Vinyl

Format: LP, Album, Limited Edition, Orange Vinyl, 105 copies

Release Date: 21 April 2023

After his 2018 debut album “My Love Sunday” (Review), Walker Phillips is back with his sophomore LP album called “God’s Eye” released through superb European (Spanish) label Guerssen Records! The press release states:

“God’s Eye is the second album by San Francisco-based psych-folk musician Walker Phillips. It was recorded in the best 60s-70s tradition using only analogue tape and vintage instruments. According to Walker, “it contains some of the best songs I’ve written”. The first side is a suite of pleasant, delicate songs of pure psychedelic-folk bliss that recall Arthur Lee Harper or Donovan at times, while side two is a full-blown psychedelic / jazz / experimental single track inspired by Miles Davis’ ‘Bitches Brew’, meticulously tape spliced from about one hour of improvisation. It wanders somewhere between Stockhausen, Pink Floyd, and The Grateful Dead. Stunning!”…

“God’s Eye” contains 5 songs on the first side of the LP while side ‘B’ is occupied by just one track… The opener “Listen To Me > Ballad Of A Cancer With A Libra Moon Or How The Crab Got His Scales” it’s obviously a 2-part song, starting in an acoustic way with guitar and double vocals under a relaxing mellow Folkie environment while at the 2^nd part, the lovely presence of the flute moves the song into a folkie-psych-related atmosphere, which is so cool… “Juniper And Jade” is a groovy jazz-a-delic folkish tune while “Marigold Eyes” is another acoustic track drenched into the necessary psychness, a Folk-Psych tune accompanied by a guitar (acoustic of course) and the discreet sound of a sitar, surely one of the best moments in this album… “Song Of Solomon” is a kind of Folkie “epic” song, sung by a modern-age Troubadour that is deeply inspired by those magnificent “Loners” from the first half of the 60s decade, a song that indeed flirts a bit with Psych… The last song on side ‘A’ is called “God’s Eye”, another Folkie tune with a soft harmonica sound, acoustic guitar, and mellow vocals while Walker more recites than sings, lovely… The sidelong track on side ‘B’ is called “Lovebird > Lovebird I”, it starts with an acoustic guitar and a rather adventurous Flute, both creating a Folkie-Psych soundscape giving space to the modern-age Troubadour to speak his story… Slowly the scenery changes, becoming more psychedelic-like emerging a mysterious feeling of an unexplained Euphoria, maybe it’s because of the piano sound or the electric guitar, or maybe the one to blame is the tambourine, by now the whole track has been transformed into a sentimental Folk-Psych kind of journey while the flute is dragging the listener into more darkish (and maybe jazz-ish) territories, the backward sounds are only making things more psychedelically complex, and just for a while the scenery becomes extremely avant-garde, then all of a sudden everything turns to Bluesy but with a trippy experimental touch, becoming mystical and Middle Eastern-flirting towards its end… Wow! That was a Trip! A Trip right through God’s Eye! “God’s Eye” is a super cool album that will not disappoint all Folk-Psych-ers out there… So, Grab it while you can… TimeLord Michalis

Tracklist

Listen through WALKER PHILLIPS Bandcamp

Buy it directly through GUERSSEN RECORDS

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