Durham musician Phil Cook's new album is for the birds

Axios

21-03-2025

A wood thrush sings in E-flat — a fact the prolific Durham musician Phil Cook discovered while interpreting the sounds of the Orange County woods on his piano.
Why it matters: Cook's latest album, " Appalachian Borealis" — 11 stripped-down piano works, many featuring recordings from the fields and woods of North Carolina's Piedmont — holds a mirror to the quiet moments spent with nature and to what life felt like for Cook while quarantined at home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
It's out Friday on Psychic Hotline, a new record label founded by the Durham band Sylvan Esso. Cook will also host a listening party and Q&A at the Pinhook in Durham on Sunday.
What they're saying: "The best release I had every day was taking my boys into the woods," Cook told Axios of the early days of the pandemic. "That's stayed with me since. That's my calm place. It's like, I'm in that sanctuary, and I start to really hear all those sounds."
Then one morning, Cook recalled, while waking up with his bedroom open, he became nearly overwhelmed by the symphony of bird sounds coming from a nearby willow tree at dawn. He put his phone on the ledge and recorded the noise.
"That day I came into the studio here, and I sat down on my piano and for some reason, I just put the bird recording on in my headphones ... and I just did improv," he said.
Between the lines: Cook wrote three songs that session, including what would become "Dawn Birds" on the album.
The process was a return to simplicity for Cook and an embrace of the piano, an instrument he spent most of his childhood learning but re-dedicated himself to in recent years.
He was inspired by the Durham pianist and gospel musician Chuckey Robinson to stop using the damper pedal on the piano and really lean into playing without any effects.
The result, Cook said, is that he gained more "muscular control" of the piano. "I hold what I want to hold, and I play what I want to play," he said.
State of play: As the project came together, Cook reached out to Justin Vernon, the creative force behind Bon Iver, and asked if he could produce the album.
Flashback: Cook and Vernon go way back — attending high school together in Wisconsin and then later moving to Raleigh to perform in the short-lived band DeYarmond Edison.
"I ruminated on asking on him to be the producer, but it was really clear in my mind just because we grew up together, and he knows my voice in the piano as well as anyone on the planet," Cook said. "And he could hold me accountable to myself in the ways I really wanted and I needed."
Vernon, who will release his own new work next month, was responsible for whittling down nearly 100 recordings Cook made at his studio in Wisconsin into the 11 final tracks that appear on the album.
What's next: Starting next month, Cook will begin taking this music on the road, his first tour in around five years and the first for which he'll travel solo. He anticipates the songs will evolve every night as he plays around with their structure.
He won't be taking any instruments with him, instead meeting a new piano every night of the tour. (He says it takes an hour before every show to become acclimated with a new piano.)
So far, no North Carolina show has been scheduled, but Cook says he has something special planned.
"I'm not quite sure where it'll be. I have a couple of good ideas, like the venue and how we set up the room," Cook said. "I think about it a lot, so I want it to be a special show."