Spencer Kilpatrick is a Big Water, UT-based blues guitarist and singer/songwriter, who has built a profile regionally for playing Stax Records-infused soul and blues with a smoky, aching croon. Kilpatrick has sporadically released material online for some time now, including his latest four song EP, four big water bluses, which he wrote and recorded after losing weekly gigs as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Spending the bulk of his 20s in garage rock bands, Kilpatrick’s latest effort finds him returning to some of his earliest musical influences — the blues — as a conscious step outside of the comfort zone he had developed for himself. The EP’s third track “the one where you wait for vocals to come in” really caught my ear. Centered around shimmering and expressive guitar work, the track is a slow-burning classic blues-inspired song that the emerging Utah-bass artist says was inspired by Mdou Moctar, Jimi Hendrix‘s instrumental version of “Born Under A Bad Sign” and Funkadelic‘s “Maggot Brain” — with a subtly lysergic air.
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