Written by: Dave Cantrell

It’s not all that often that we here at Stereo Embers are eager to premiere the next single from a soon-to-be-released album (their third, first for Shimmy-Disc) when we’ve only just recently premiered the previous one but, then again, it’s not all that often when we’re presented with an artist that strikes us as being one of those out-of-the-gate wunderkinds like Nathan Phillips, whose project Big Bend is on a bit of a quiet tear, what with the “Wheeling” single that we featured back on July 25th still tenderly ringing in our yearning ears like a tug of curious nostalgia that we just can’t – nor wish to – shake and now comes this new one called “Fast Moon,” which, as you might well imagine, we are actually nothing but stoked to share, being as it is another sublime gambol through the subtly curious musical subconscious of this gently stunning new-to-us singer-songwriter. By equal measures traditional and adventurously innovative, unfettered but also busy-as-fck, the track you have before you is likely not like anything you’ve heard before (unless you heard that previous single, in which case we’re preaching to the head-nodding choir), so much so that we’re going to do the wise thing here and step out of the way and just let you listen. This track, like that one we brought you a month ago, features on Big Bend’s debut album Last Circle in a Slowdown (dropping, in fact, today) and will stun you with its nuanced complexity, sounding as it does to these ancient ears like the natural, if a bit more centered, descendent of Tim Buckley’s most intense work. While it’s not brandished to impress, the intensity inherent in Phillips’s work is unmistakably as sincere, as driven, as plainly human and real. He is, in short, a startling new talent that we are nothing but honored to present, once again, on these humble pages. [pick up Last Circle in a Slowdon here]