(Self-released, digital)
It’s almost impossible to tell now, but Burlington was once bisected by a massive ravine, a remnant of the Winooski River’s prehistoric path to Lake Champlain. In the late 19th century, the ravine was filled in, but vestigial reminders of the old gully remain, if you know where to look.
Singer-songwriter Phil Cohen centers his new album on the ravine as a portal to some proper apocalyptic doom-folk music. Fittingly titled Ravine, the album is a collection of songs Cohen wrote while recording his last LP, 2024’s I Put the Day Away. He tracked the songs to a portable tape machine, giving the new record a wonderfully lo-fi, DIY feel. Ravine shines as a true bare-bones record.
Queen City residents might find the album something of an Easter egg hunt, with song titles such as “dual churches (where would we be without bob blanchard?),” a reference to a popular local historian; and “murder mart (original location),” which name-checks an infamous downtown convenience store.
But within those bite-size tunes (the songs rarely go past the two-minute mark), Cohen supplies tender, intimate vocals and a stripped-down folk sound that edges toward a rustic Appalachian tone. This 20-minute album of slightly tremulous, no-frills American folk is laced with nostalgia and conveys a musician watching his home change around him in muted alarm. Take “(filling in the) midtown motel,” on which Cohen sings, “The gutters don’t have punks at all / the big time is getting pretty small.”
Ravine isn’t simply a portrait of a fading Queen City. Cohen uses the metaphor of the city’s geological gap to explore loneliness and impermanence, leaning on lost history to elevate the record from a mere “lost track” compendium to a moving meditation on change.
Ravine is available at philcohen.bandcamp.com and on major streaming services.
This article appears in July 22 • 2026.
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