Waterstrider’s fifth major work ‘Overturned’ is pulsing with intricate instrumentation, vivid lyrics and avant-garde performances, Nate Salman’s latest album is a hauntingly profound journey of orchestral folk and ethereal art-rock.

Exploring the contradictory nature of the psyche in a world teaming with both overwhelming beauty and human-made problems, ‘Overturned’ pivots between feelings of loss and wonder. Using fantastical motifs, weaving mythology with everyday experiences, this album belongs to the realms of science fiction and folklore and yet reads as a series of heart-wrenchingly human songs. Waterstrider stands at the precipice of a wounded world and meditates on life and death, finding solace in forces of nature and the order of the cosmos.

At the core, ‘Overturned’ presents otherness as a virtue and a path for bringing equilibrium and collective healing to an off-kilter world. Dying beasts call for help in ancient forests, the ouroboros snake consumes and rebirths itself, flowers grow in abandoned cities. Waterstrider’s lyrics evoke the epic poems of TS Elliot, William Blake and EE Cummings, delivered with their ‘wildly captivating falsetto’ voice.

Including collaborations with Elena Shelton, Tauwoo, Antrom Alexander and Cole MGN, the album is heightened by artists who are magnetized to Waterstrider’s world. ‘Overturned’ was recorded and produced in Oakland, where Salman continues to write and regularly perform.