“Upon this rock I will sing my world”

While Kim Stockwood’s world spills out well beyond the shores of Newfoundlandand and Labrador, she is anchored heart and soul to this place. She seeks out what is special here and searches for a voice that will reflect her longing and love for the province. One way she has found to capture that voice is to go Back To The Water.

When Kim left her beloved native spot eighteen years ago she could not have known the paths she would travel or the heights she would scale. Kim is an accomplished artist on many fronts, from singer to songwriter to television host and radio personality. These things she does with humor, grace, and class. Her hit songs, her awards and accolades, her solo work and her work with Shaye, have seen her mature as an artist. Her wealth of experience and her longing for home have laid the foundation for Back To The Water.

This album is filled with the sound and fury of a place that surges upward with a fist of rock and grabs life from the sky’s air. The album is enriched and enlivened by Newfoundland musical luminaries and session players who would shame the Nashville Scene. It is a great source of pride for Kim to have her wonderful Dad play with her.

The power of the sea can be heard here, roaring beneath Kim’s soaring vocals.

The album, Back To The Water, is indeed a musical trip through the beating heart of the province. Surrounded by water, yes, her place is made rigid by granite pillars like those “Cliffs Of Baccalieu”, that Kim navigates so beautifully as she dances among the tunes of her native land.

Listen to her “Let Me Fish Off Cape St. Mary’s” and you are taken to both a real and a mystical place. You feel the ache of the “Petty Harbour Bait Skiff” and taste the dread of the daily sea drama that punctures our ancestral memories. This song is tempered by the skip, caper, and sly nod of the “Squid Jiggin’ Ground”, and the sense of fun found in “Feller From Fortune”. There is a certain beauty in that balance.

Kim has chosen her songs carefully, with the romance of the “St. John’s Waltz” held arms length against the everlasting anguish of Atlantic Blue. Ron Hynes is served well here. The title track, Back To The Water, was written with her close friend, Damhnait Doyle. One can only imagine what gems might pebble the paths Kim will travel, or what crowning heights she will scale before “Now I’m 64″ becomes her mantra. In the meantime, we revel in the present smiling land and “Thank God We’re Surrounded By Water”.

If you find yourself near Cabot Tower on a warm summer evening, pick your own rock, fire up the iPod and sink into the album Back To The Water. There you will find the joy, peace, and the wisdom of the deep.

Back to the Water was recorded and produced in Newfoundland and features the finest of Newfoundland musicians and songwriters.