Turn this Tide | about

 

This project should have a name. It should be named Turn the Tide. Let’s go with Turn this Tide. Because it’s about this tide, right here and now. We can only speak for this one.

Turn this Tide is a music and poetry recording project involving my poetry, along with the musicianship and singing voices of local New Bedford, Massachusetts musicians and singers. My goal is to release these recordings on vinyl if the moon allows.

To help this happen there will be a fundraiser of handmade paper collages by myself. 30 in total will be offered up for anyone with 30 bucks they’d like to give to this personal endeavor that should have happened a decade ago. The time is right now. I’m finally ready.

The story behind these poems is, at least on the surface, a love story, or stories that fit ever so nicely together. The beginning, some meandering middles, and an end. Fin. Again.

Listen for the nuance of meeting, letting go, waiting, ebbing, getting back together, wading. This story has been acting out in my poems on repeat, like any good love or love song should be doing. That and a healthy dose of a brief existential episode and/or questioning what goes along with all of that. Don’t worry, there is a pop-song as part of this project too, I promise.

I have been hanging out in NB for well over a decade. And I’m the newcomer. These musicians and singers have helped me enjoy live music for that whole time and I am honored to have been a fan, and now, with this project, a contemporary.

P.s. More is more. The 12 inch vinyl record of this project is on the horizon! Just a heads-up though. All the details on that part are on the way…

But for now, please follow this blog for the focusing in on the process along the way. Like pics of the collages as they are created, and some snippets of the audio recordings as they are caught mid-flight between collaborators. I also plan on typing out more of my thoughts on the past and present process, and the 'how I got here' moments. So do stay tuned.

Thanks for your interest,

Phillip J. Mellen

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