This Deep Waters 12-inch comes with a couple of little extras. Hand-pasted cover art on a converted recycled LP sleeve (mine is an old Alabama record, by the way), blue vinyl… I also got a really nice hand-written note with accompanying artwork on some fancy parchment. But the kicker: A bag of Salada brand Green Tea came nestled safely within the package. I’m drinking it right now, actually, and it goes down pretty smooth with these “synth explorations,” although I must admit, it only makes me realize that Deep Waters is deep winter music. These are songs for warming, for healing. Essentially, a series of piano ballads swirled out of your hi-fi amplifier, sounds twisting through the air like fine calligraphy even though the lines might appear a little wonky at times. It’s delicate and nice, but also very much done by hand - pieced together with an innocent sort of grace, a brief twinkle in this record’s watery eye. “Fragile” is probably the best word I can come up with, the voice of David Spalvieri-Kruse shivering in the coldness of the mix’s barren, open field of audio. There are synths and pianos, a guitar occasionally, even other voices all up in Deep Waters’ business, surrounding, but they don’t feel like support as much as they do sympathizers, watching a lonely figure from the outside looking in. Luckily the vocal melodies carry their weight to give each song its own deserved heft. The voice… honestly, the voice will throw you at first, wobbling in and out of intonation as it does, but hey, I know you thought the same thing about Dean Wearham’s, too. It’ll grow on you, and grow inside of you, and in a good way. August seems like exactly the wrong time for me to be submitting this review, but just think of me come November when you’re snuggling up to these pretty tunes. I’ll accept thank you presents through Hanukkah.
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