Eric Slick previews debut Palisades LP with meditation-inspired “You Became the Light”
The lead single from Eric Slick‘s debut solo effort Palisades is about his first time meditating.
If you were expecting to hear a mellow, sonically-intimate song after reading that line, you’re in for a surprise. Far from it, “You Became the Light” is a barrage of guitar and drums from the onset. An upswell of tone, synth, and cymbals rush in on the phrase “wave to your friend,” perhaps evoking a sense of heaviness leading into lightness during mediation, but the mind remains steadily drenched in sound throughout the track.
About the lead single, Slick writes:
“You Became The Light’ is a song about my first time meditating. For three years I attempted some form of contemplative practice to achieve stillness. I finally got there, but then realized there was a lifetime of work ahead of me.”
Palisades is also a longtime coming for the Philadelphia native. He’s released demo recordings and individual songs here and there over the years, but commitments to Dr. Dog, Lithuania, and Adrien Belew remained his priorities, at least from the outsider perspective. In 2014 Slick was able to put those projects on hold, move to Asheville, NC, and spend a productive year in the woods (“I know it’s the funny trope: indie rock dude goes to the woods and makes an outsider record… But it was a time of deep introspection and a fruitful period of my life,” he says), resulting in a collection of songs about death, dream therapy, and mysticism.
Palisades is out April 21st via Egghunt Records. Slick will take the record out for a pre-release tour in March, opening for Delicate Steve at Underground Arts on March 9th and returning for a show at World Cafe Live with Tift Merritt on March 29th. Tickets and information for both shows can be found here. Stream “You Became The Light” below.