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Today, Phil Cook blends piano improvisations with serene, aviary symphonies in another stunning preview of his forthcoming album. Out March 21st on Psychic Hotline, and produced by Bon Iver's Justin Vernon, Appalachia Borealis is a set of 11 deeply moving meditations, marking both the culmination of Cook's life thus far, and the start of a focused new solo career for an artist and band member who has collaborated with everyone from Anaïs Mitchell, Hiss Golden Messenger, Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Waxahatchee to Bon Iver, Indigo Girls, The Japanese House, Mavis Staples and more. On this latest single, "Dawn Birds," the hymn-like arrangement evokes the sunrise that Phil Cook would experience during an extended retreat to a North Carolina farm, where he first started gathering the field recordings and composing the music that would later become Appalachia Borealis. During a fraught period of personal turmoil, the settings and the songs each served as a sanctuary.
Listen to "Dawn Birds" via Psychic Hotline, and see it set to nature in the accompanying music video from Daniel Fox Films: HERE
"Dawn Birds" follows the recently released title track, "Appalachia Borealis," as well as Phil Cook's reimagining of Gillian Welch's "I Made A Lovers Prayer," which also appears on the album. Across the rest of Appalachia Borealis, Cook further reaffirms a commitment to the first and most steadfast love of his musical life – the piano – as he uses the instrument to translate the emotional range of a full and open existence, equal parts tender and resilient. "[Appalachia Borealis] sounds and reads like a love letter," praises Flaunt. "One that prioritizes compassion, healing, unpredictability, and a devotion to his chosen instrument…it speaks a language of universal truth and personal growth, something everyone can comprehend." On "Dawn Birds," Phil Cook says:
"I lived on a farm in 2023-2024 and I loved the quiet evenings and the gorgeous sunsets that preceded them. My sons enjoyed spending their afternoons outside in the woods. I kept my bedroom window cracked to feel the brisk spring air and to hear the birds calling at dawn in the willow tree a few feet away. One morning the aviary symphony was in particular bounty and I set my phone on the window sill to capture it. This ended up being the first recording I used to write a song with for Appalachia Borealis. The reverence of the dawn invited a hymn-like approach. This was, like almost all of my compositions, an improvisation that I later listened back to and realized was a finished piece. The simple act of layering the sanctuary piano offers me with the sanctuary the forest offers me has had a tremendous effect on me personally. I'm thrilled to still be discovering such simple intuitive truths to unlock deeper dimensions of the creative process as I get older."
While the album began on the edge of the forest in North Carolina's Piedmont region - where Phil Cook was greeted each morning by those choruses of bird songs, playing along to voice memos and meeting each day with a new curiosity and willingness – Cook recorded the album at the April Base compound in April of 2024. He returned to the place he was raised in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley, and asked his lifelong friend and bandmate, Justin Vernon, to produce Appalachia Borealis, and capture the heart of the pieces that came to carry his soul.
Now, following the release of Appalachia Borealis, Phil Cook will bring the songs that started on a windowsill to a much wider world. Kicking off with a performance at Big Ears Festival, his US solo tour will then include stops at New York City's Le Poisson Rouge, Los Angeles' Gold-Diggers, and 15 other shows throughout the East Coast, Midwest and West Coast.
Unfolding in three acts of audio, video and multimedia, each performance will reveal untold parts of his life, in hopes that the audience walks away feeling reconnected with themselves. Find the list of tour dates below, and tickets at philcookmusic.com.
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