Acclaimed Austin-based duo The Watters are set to release with their third full-length album, Duality, on 4/11/24, following their win of three John Lennon Songwriting Contest awards from their 2021 LP, Intuition. Produced by Austin wünderkid Daniel Creamer and recorded at The Finishing School, the new album is a culmination of The Watters’s almost two decades-long career together, with a title track thirteen years in the making.
The song “Duality” was conceived in 2009, the same year that Jenna and Daniel Watters began to write and perform professionally as a duo. Then, they were equally interested in folk and electronic music and in an effort to merge the two genres, Daniel created an electronic beat that was ultimately tucked away in his laptop as the duo decided to pivot to a more rootsy, folk-rock sound. But, that beat remained fresh to their ears for years, and the two kept trying to find a use for it through all their musical and personal evolutions, including three full-length albums, living in four different cities, and getting married and having a son.
While writing for their 2021 album Intuition, Jenna had a stream of consciousness experience while driving home and recorded her singing some words and melody on her phone over the beat. Flash forward to early 2023, when The Watters were preparing to record once again and gave producer Daniel Creamer a grouping of the music they’d been working on. Despite having no vocals on it, Creamer loved the “Duality” beat and wanted to pursue it, so the Watters finished the lyrics Jenna had envisioned with help from Creamer on the arrangement.
As the first song recorded, “Duality” set the tone for the rest of the album in terms of dynamics, production, and vibe. Representing the polarity between opposites and the human experience of swinging between them, trying to find a middle way and the strength that can be found in connecting the two, the song reflecting all the challenges, learning, and growth both writers had to go through in order to finish it, with the full album standing as a triumph of The Watters’s evolution as people and musicians.
The decision to record the album at The Finishing School seems somewhat fated, too. While Daniel had produced albums for others there in the past, The Watters had never recorded there. The studio had recently been renovated with every room designed in 3x6x9 golden ratios, and with one of the songs from Duality titled “Golden Ratio,” Daniel and Jenna felt a strong call to record the album there.
Duality is inspired by 70’s AM radio and 90’s R&B, and is an artistic expression of the current Austin music scene, backed by some of the finest musicians in town with Austin legend Jim Vollentine serving as chief engineer. Instead of following suit and releasing low budget singles to keep up with modern music consumption, The Watters are doing the opposite–creating a timeless, traditional album at the highest quality possible.
About
With nearly twenty years of musical collaboration together, husband and wife duo Daniel and Jenna Watters embrace a sound they call “Americana Soul.” Seamlessly blending Soul, Rock and Jazz, they have been described as “Fleetwood Mac with a horn section” after developing their unique but accessible sound across seven different albums together under various monikers and releasing their debut record as their current band, The Watters, in 2016. Now an acclaimed mainstay of the Austin music scene, they have garnered a devoted fan base through their stirring vocals and road-weathered musicianship and have opened for artists like Michael McDonald, The Revivalists, Allen Stone, and Devon Gilfillian.
Before settling in Austin, The Watters developed their eclectic sound in part by living in several dramatically different cities including Los Angeles, Denver, Nashville, but their story began in Sedona, Arizona. They met on the pee wee football team in 6th grade, though it wasn’t until their high school graduation ceremony when they first sang together, performing “Bridge Over Troubled Water.” The spark of chemistry they felt as much as the audience did led the two to start writing together and performing at local coffee shops around northern Arizona and Los Angeles during their summer and winter school breaks. Four years of long distance writing and performing later, the two moved to Denver in 2009 to formally start their first band, “The Oak Creek Band.” Their romantic relationship was born soon after, and they married in 2011. After years of cutting their teeth in the mountain towns of the Colorado Rockies and then a stint in Nashville, the duo felt geographically aimless and uninspired, and on a fated drive back to Sedona in 2015, they took a long detour to Austin. They saw one show at The Continental Club Gallery and, falling instantly in love with the city’s music scene and vibe, decided that night to make it their new home.
Since then, they have released two full length LPs (The Watters, Intuition) one EP (Mellow), and played nearly every venue in Austin. They’ve been awarded several grants from local-non profits for their artistry including Sonic Gud Major Grant and the Long Center Live Music Grant and won four national John Lennon Songwriting Contest Awards for tracks from 2021’s Intuition. The Watters’s third full-length album, Duality, slated for release in late 2023, is a culmination of their nineteen years of creating and performing together and reflects all the challenges, learning, and growth they have evolved through as individuals and a duo. For The Watters, life and music are one, their journey together being their greatest muse.
Source
Olivia Long PR
