This Water is Life is a self-sustained and ongoing series of split EPs with two express purposes: to highlight new hip-hop / indie rock music from Southeastern North Carolina, as well as to provide a platform for Cape Fear River Watch and Coastal Plain Conservation Group to deliver up-to-date authoritative reports on the health of the Cape Fear River Basin for both human beings and wildlife.
Ever since our forebears crawled up out of the water and drew their first breath, our – which is to say human and animal (and for that matter, plant) – experience has never strayed too far from its life-sustaining force. This water IS life. It will continue to be. But what kind of life? Threats to that water are, in turn, threats to the very life it supports.
Inspired by photography focused on water in urban landscapes against a backdrop of the evolving GenX (PFAS) water pollution problem in the Wilmington, NC / Cape Fear region, This Water is Life is a local multimedia, multi-platform project. It takes what Fort Lowell Records does best – put out and promote killer indie music of varied stripes – and fuses it with photography and other visual arts alongside river and wildlife advocacy. The goal is a virtuous circle contained within an intended series of records. Packaged together, musical and visual artists from the Port City combined with a separate, serialized and locally-specific environmental message gives rise to the future promotion of other local music acts and further advocacy.
Volume III features Sheme of Gold and cydaddy.
Hip-Hop: Sheme of Gold
Sheme of Gold is an artist born and raised in Goldsboro, North Carolina, who relocated to Wilmington to attend culinary school in 2019, six months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His unique style of hip hop is nostalgic and psychedelic, which grabs the listeners attention right away. His stories shed light on the struggles he’s endured and the confidence and braggadocio it takes to make a man of this stature.
Indie Rock: cydaddy
cydaddy is a solo recording project for singer-songwriter / multi-instrumentalist Cyrus Goudarzi. Cyrus’s musical journey started in high school exploring home recording and sneaking around local shows in Wilmington, North Carolina. After an album release in 2010, his musical journey continued to Chicago, Illinois, where he would fill in rotating lineups for the next several years. Following, cydaddy was a leading member of local salt rock outfit Reef Blower. Unquestionably, cydaddy is a product of his environment in the wildlife of the southeastern coast and has a heavy heart for the natural habitats that have shaped his years.
Just as clean water helps sustain life on Earth and here in the ILM, your purchase of this record fosters the work of not only hip hop, indie rock and visual artists in Wilmington but advances the advocacy of groups seeking to protect and preserve water and wildlife in the region. This water is life.
