Solwater’s Feel It All the Way features fingerstyle and steel guitars, cello, flute, Luke Anderson’s soft baritone voice, a lovely female vocalist and, here and there, the plucked notes of an African kora sparkling like diamonds among the golden melodies.
The album released today.
The nine tracks bring music and lyrics to simply enjoy for beauty’s sake, to soothe jangled nerves, heal a broken spirit, feed the soul or make it embrace hope.
Luke, the artist known as Solwater, began his career in music as a 10-year-old trombonist in a jazz band.
“A little 10-year-old with a huge trombone is kind of a comical sight, and maybe they just had me because it made people laugh,” he said. “I don't know, but I was writing songs starting at age 15.”
His music now, at age 51, is difficult to classify by genre. He agreed with a characterization as metaphysical folk rock.
“Metaphysical folk rock is actually a good little tag,” he said, laughing. “Some people call it journey music or medicine music, and there's a lot of people who take psychedelics to my music.”
Solwater is a musical project as well as an artist name.
“It’s me, but if you listen to my songs, there’s a lot of water. There’s a lot of elemental imagery.”
He quotes a line from the first song on the album, “Belonging”: “Grief, like a river, teaching me how to feel in a world on fire. How are we going to heal?”
“I feel like one of the things that we are faced with as humanity — in a very real way here in California, it’s on fire every summer — is humanity is dealing with a problem of too much fire, too much violence, too much unconscious anger. Really, we need to mature as humanity, and I think one of the things that can help with that is more water.”
Luke writes the music and the lyrics, and he and his collaborators create the finished tracks.
The producer, John Alevizakis, is a multi-instrumentalist who has earned Grammy nominations and Gold and Platinum Album honors working with artists such as Willie Nelson, Third Eye Blind and Donovan.
Jared May is the bassist, Salif Bamakora plays the kora, a 21-string African instrument, Jakob Ped is lead guitar and Aea Luz, an accomplished singer-songwriter under her own name, has sung with Solwater for a decade.
For 10 years, he, Aea and Jakob have been playing at healing and meditation retreats for people who need the power of music to help them cope with the challenges and griefs of life. His songs are long form, six minutes or so each, and, in the live performances at the retreats, can run longer as they improvise for the moment.
“One of my marketing challenges — maybe opportunities as well as challenge — is that there are people who love this music, but it doesn’t necessarily fit into the playlist genres.”
His imagery, the beauty in his lyrics and music, the beauty in the performances of the artists, are employed in service to a mission. He doesn’t call it a mission, but in the news release he wrote for his electronic press kit, that’s what he describes:
“In these times of deep challenge for humanity and the earth, I believe that our creativity is more important than ever, and that music can truly be medicine. Art asks us to open our eyes and ears, allow ourselves to be touched and reminded how to listen.”
Solwater, Luke’s artist persona, is a multi-instrumentalist and a multinational. His father grew up in southern Africa, his mother was born in Singapore, and Luke was raised in Southeast Asia. He has lived in Hong Kong, Brunei, India and England and now lives in California.
Along with the jazz band, his experience includes time in a psychedelic rock band singing covers from the likes of Hendrix and The Doors.
“The forever artists,” he said. “That’s the thing, right? I am interested in creating an album that actually has longevity, that you could listen to in 10 years and it’s not going to be dated by being the particular whatever, all the things that are gimmicky at the moment.”
In Feel It All the Way, he also wanted to create a journey. In his EPK press release, he said, “This album is a journey home through the landscape of the human heart. These songs are an invitation into a more soulful way of being.”
The journey is in the track titles: “Belonging,” “Fears Falling Away,” “Follow the Road,” “Courage,” “Lovers Song,” the title track “Feel It All the Way,” “Sing the Circle Open Wider,” “Sea of Stars,” and the closing instrumental “Jaguar Calling.”
Solwater created the album to be heard in a single sitting, in that order, music taken as a journey. If it is music as medicine, it is wonderful medicine whether taken in small doses or injected all at once.
Pieces of a variety of genres are in the music, but they are gently turned — have evolved — into new creations.
Luke says he is writing, on average, two songs a month and will be going into the studio to record the first single for his second album next month.
“I am really excited about the Solwater project and the different musical collaborators that I am recording with,” he said. “It’s taken me decades to feel like I matured to the level that I could be proud to release music. I look forward to releasing music for the rest of my life.”
Take the journey with him and connect to Solwater on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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