Long before his critically acclaimed debut album "Origins" (2009) and its equally critically acclaimed follow-up "Solaria" (2012), Kevin Werdelmann, aka Slowtide, had already attracted attention with the two demo CDs "Time Escape" (2001) and "Things That Fade" (2002). These early works, long out of print, were still available in the best DIY format as blank CDs with self-printed covers.
Nine songs, created in a bedroom with a simply orchestrated setting, in a confined space, and with few tracks, were already recognized for their great potential in the demo columns of relevant magazines. More than 15 years later, Kevin breathes new life into these raw demo fragments with the album "A Gentle Reminder," dressing them sometimes elegiacally with strings and pianos, sometimes exhilaratingly with guitars and synthesizers, sometimes not at all.
A reinterpretation of youthful ideas from a mature perspective, which one can undoubtedly hear are close to the artist's heart.
The resulting album sees itself more as a compilation, a tour through an exhibition of stylistically divergent images from bygone eras, thus unashamedly paying homage to the diversity of possibilities. The album opens with the angst-ridden, shimmering synth-rock opener "Today," shortly thereafter losing itself in the grueling melancholy of the intimate chamber pop of "Soothing Light," exhorting a change of perspective over a pulsating lo-fi drum loop in "The Shape of Things," and then sweats its way through the spunky '70s rock of "Get Up You're Free."
In this sense, ambivalence is the lyrical focus: the rebellion against one's own demons and the devastating capitulation, the last chances and the eternal failures, budding hope and hopeless despair.
1.Today
2. Soothing Light
3. The Shape of Things
4. Get Up You're Free
5. Safe
6. Halcyon Days
7.lights
8. The Story of Your Life
9. Fall Down
