PETER WINNIPEG

Berlin EP I

Jan 10, 2025

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Berlin EP I is the latest release from Peter Winnipeg. In these three songs, Winnipeg strips away his songs to the bare essentials- dry, dark acoustic guitar, soft upright piano, and his voice. These minimal productions are reminicent of Nick Drake's eternally haunting Pink Moon and John Martyn's moody masterpieces Solid Air and Sunday's Child.

"Left the Nest" is the first track, backdropped by ambient orchestral soundscapes that echo the transitory mid-career productions of Scott Walker. Its existential lyrics deal with the weight of decision, the dread of time's incessant passing, and the relief found in love. It builds to a dramatic, cinematic climax in the coda before blowing out the candle again and returning us to the shadows.

"Chicago" is a memory of a winter's night in the city living in a dilapidated apartment. Soft felt-hammered piano notes drop like snowflakes from the sky as Winnipeg's acoustic guitar ostinato roots the piece into the earth. The song starts happily, we see snow falling over a lit church at Christmastime, before our awareness turns, perturbed, to the broken home we are in, mice chewing away inside the walls. The piece lives in this struggle to reach from the broken world up to the redeeming heavens above.

The EP concludes with "Carnival", another meditation on time's endless acceleration, and the universal ache to return to a world that only exists in our memories. A driving arpeggiated acoustic guitar and Winnipeg's voice are all we hear in this final piece. The harmonies progress restlessly, seeming never to stop in one place for too long, until, just like in life, we finally reach the end.

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