back to
Thrill Jockey Records
We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Hidden Path

by Plankton Wat

/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Includes unlimited streaming of Hidden Path via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $23 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

1.
2.
3.
4.
Hidden Path 05:28
5.
6.
7.
Awaken 04:09
8.

about

The music of Dewey Mahood is steadfast in its pursuit of transcendence. For the past two decades as Plankton Wat, Mahood has contoured his melodic guitar playing into wholly transfiguring pieces. His fluid compositions apply ethereal, elastic textures to grounded rhythmic grooves that recall the cosmic and the earthly in equal measure. Hidden Path is an album built on reflection and discovery, turning the thrill of exploring obscured passages into inward revelations. Originally presented as a limited cassette in 2017, and now presented on vinyl for the first time, remastered by Amy Dragon, Hidden Path is a distillation of Mahood’s musical practice as a way of life, a patient celebration of the unexpected, unhurried and exhilarating.

The seeds of Hidden Path were planted when Mahood was completing his 2013 album Drifter’s Temple. Title track “Hidden Path” was composed alongside that album, but stood out from the rest as a new starting point. “I was thinking of escape, and finding calm,” says Mahood. “But after working on the new album for a while the title Hidden Path took on a new meaning for me. It became about my life, and the path that I'd chosen for myself.” Having grown up immersed in the communities of underground music, Hidden Path became a personal affirmation. “It's about knowing yourself and following your heart and passion,” adds Mahood. “It is a political album in the sense of saying it's okay to opt out of everything mainstream, you don't need a great job, or much money at all to be happy and feel satisfaction in your life. My music and art are about rejecting anything that seems normal or status quo or of the modern capitalist world. This music is about life outside of all that.”

The process for building out the album’s sound world is mirrored in the pieces themselves. Mahood instilled his relaxed pace into the pieces which flower into moments of joyful surprise and release. The feel of each piece is effortless, but maintains subtle tension that Mahood masterfully compounds with repetition until washes of elation take hold. The cadence of album opener “The Inward Reflection” dissolves into a crest of roiling wails. A forest of percussive rustles, folk-driven 12-string, meandering bass and billowing wisps of flute grows dense and murky before opening out into a welcoming meadow on “Dream Cascade.” Oozing guitar textures on “The Everflowing Stream” sift and smolder as a steady pulse carries the drift deeper into the unknown. “Hidden Path” wades through primordial synthesizers and Ash Dybvig’s trickling flute, driven by longtime collaborator Dustin Dybvig’s hip-hop inspired drums. Whether playing with an ensemble in the same room or layering his own overdubs, Mahood harnesses improvisation to revel in curiosity and connection.

Hidden Path is an expedition into the unknowable. Mahood’s lush compositions guide one from dreamy verdence to pensive ragas with the jubilence of walking a new path for the first time. The searching pieces are layered with a sense of mystery that reveals new details on each trek through their winding routes. Plankton Wat’s Hidden Path embodies the bliss in remaining inquisitive about worlds both exterior and interior to divine unearthed wonders.

credits

released May 20, 2022

All music written, recorded and performed by Dewey Mahood
with Dustin Dybvig, keyboard and percussion (Dream Cascade), drums and flute (Hidden Path)
Ash Dybvig, flute (Dream Cascade, Hidden Path, Solitude Amongst The Trees)
John Rau, electric bass (Dream Cascade, The Everflowing Stream)
Matt McDowell, lap steel (The Everflowing Stream)

Post production by Dustin Dybvig
Mastered by Amy Dragon
ARtwork by Dewey Mahood
Photo by Loni Gaghan

Originally released on cassette tape by Sky Lantern Records 2017

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Plankton Wat Portland, Oregon

Portland musician Dewey Mahood is one of the most versatile and prolific musicians in the modern psychedelic underground. As Plankton Wat, he has explored the outer reaches of folk and synthesized drift since the mid-aughts, and his dedication to improvisation above all else, his restless exploratory spirit, has earned him his place as a dark horse in the continuum of contemporary sonic explorers. ... more

contact / help

Contact Plankton Wat

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Plankton Wat, you may also like: