FLASH: RETROSPECTIVE – STEPHANIE PHILLIPS

3 years ago

Stephanie Phillips Retrospective - Photo: Sandy Peters

With her album Retrospective, officially released at the end of October 2023, Stephanie Phillips proposes a unique and dreamy performance. Review.

RETROSPECTIVE – STEPHANIE PHILLIPS

Originally recorded in 1993, Stephanie Phillips had revealed her clear voice, guitar in hand. It’s intimate, soft, and moving. But at the time, the record is not truly finished. It was difficult at the time to release as an independent artist. The songwriter reopens the chapter of her very first record thirty years later, adding balanced, sometimes discreet, harmonies. And it brings everything to another level. The record is now really complete.

With an added experience, Phillips gets to support herself with hindsight, tenderness, and accuracy in her additional vocals. It’s almost unreal, and from the get-go, Tell Me Something. It Doesn’t Matter delivers with its wild energy and its sobriety. Whether it is love or loss, it’s with the simple duet of vocals and guitar that Phillips moves, sometimes to tears. You and I is one of those. A sweet folk through and through, other tracks are also poignant like Thirty Years, a heartbreaking portrait of love in a complex environment.

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Along with Joni Elfers and Mackenzie Marks for the re-recording, Stephanie Phillips cared for her early compositions and even added a track, A Clean Break, also written in the 90s. There, they added Chris Knowles’ round bass and Kenny Johnson’s discreet drums. That’s where the musician ends her travel in time. Retrospective has an immense depth in its original songs as much as in its history. It’s a life, a personal moment that will find a beautiful echo in its public.