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Photo: Michael Tyrone Delaney / Courtesy of Clarion Call

Water Slice Contemplates Whether to “Write Back” With New Single (premiere)

Los Angeles based singer-songwriter Patrick Phillips debates whether to keep the conversation going or keep his feelings to himself on single from Water Slice's upcoming EP.

Patrick Phillips is Water Slice, a Portland transplant in Los Angeles who spent some time holding down basslines in the psychedelic pop outfit James Supercave for a few years before forming his own musical identity. By early 2018 Water Slice had issued a debut single in preparation for a debut EP that will come into the light on August 10.

That initial single, “The Way”, made its debut on Live Nation’s “Ones to Watch” and gave fans a strong dose of the message the maestro intends to communicate with the masses with this new identity. Tracking the material (with the exception of “Please Remember”) with Chris Lynch and Adam Rasmussen of Gardens & Villa, Phillips, Phillips was able to establish his compositional voice, one that contains traces of the psychedelic but also the Beatles-esque as evidenced by the stomping stunner, “Write Back”, the latest to emerge from the new EP.

With a bassline that would make Sir Paul McCartney himself sit up and give the trademarked thumb up of approval to the swirling 1960s styles keyboards the tune is filled with deeply satisfying pop hallmarks that carry enough edge to tap into the most hardened rocker’s heart.

“A lot of this EP involved purging things from my past and moving forward,” Phillips says. “There was one relationship in particular that kept haunting me, and I thought I had fully exorcised the bad feelings around its loss. But it could all be unleashed instantaneously with any sort of reminder whether a place, a mutual friend, an Instagram post, whatever. What put me over the edge was a totally innocent email from this ex and the conflicted feelings about writing back. It definitely sucks to be an emotional puddle over a soon-to-be-outdated mode of communication but I’m sure other people have been there too. This is my ode to that feeling. Maybe one day I’ll send a reply.”

Water Slice‘s self-titled debut EP, due August 10.

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