The Alchemy of Sound: An Interview with Drew Carpenter from The Silvery Water
By Chris McCreary
Founded in 2020, The Silvery Water is a UK-based electronic music label helmed by Drew Carpenter. In this interview, conducted online over the summer of 2025, we discussed Drew’s commitment to physical media, the inspiration to be found in ancient alchemical texts, and Drew’s own musical projects released via the label.
Chris McCreary: When you first began with The Silvery Water, did you have a clear vision for the label, or has it a more organic evolution?
Drew Carpenter: It began as a music blog out of boredom during Covid 19. The missus showed symptoms after my week off staying at hers, I informed work and they told me to isolate for 2 weeks. Early April on a fateful morning finalising music, cigarette in mouth, you could say I had a vision to start up a music blog.
Having previous experience being the Co-Founder of After Dark Music (left operations due to personal issues). It felt right, so I looked at my list of track name ideas - I need a name/theme to create music - and The Silvery Water was chosen.
Chris McCreary: One of things that I admire about The Silvery Water is your commitment to physical media - cassettes, CDs, a magazine. Could you say a bit about your philosophy around these objects alongside, say, digital downloads on Bandcamp?
Drew Carpenter: I grew up with cassette tapes and CDs. I remember the days when all music was physical. Digital isn’t real music in my eyes, It can be deleted or lost.. You could argue the convenience if you store it on a device, it’s not for me. As for streaming, I don’t want to hear an advert every 5 minutes so it’s out of the question.
There’s a feeling I cannot describe when a project comes together and I hold the physical at the end of it, that feeling alone keeps me doing this. Last year when I built the first magazine it fulfilled a childhood dream of creating a book, it’s very rough with a few spelling mistakes. I see it as the foundation of what's to come.
I never pushed digital at all, to celebrate the 6th year anniversary of TSW it was ‘pay what you like’ and digital downloads flew out. It honestly surprised me, so I thought it was best to leave it as it is. Keep the music accessible, I’d rather it be heard over not at all. The happy medium has been found.
Chris McCreary: Clearly, your interest in alchemy informs this project on every level. What first drew you to those alchemical texts and images?
Drew Carpenter: It began within a wiki rabbit hole searching for track titles and happened to fall into alchemy. I saved a few tabs to go back to at a later time and that would have been that, until I wanted to start a label alongside the blog.
So I looked further into The Silvery Water the full title of the treatise “The Silvery Water and The Starry Earth” - thus Starry Earth was born. The flood gate was open, on the surface area it’s mixing metals and chemicals but it had to be more than that. You have to read deeper into the spiritual meaning, I’m not a spiritual bloke but I got something valuable out of it.
Chris McCreary: I’ve been enjoying Form & Method, the album you collaborated on as Ourá - the alchemical process provides an ideal framework for the track-by-track progression here. As a musician, how do you approach collaboration on a project like this?
Drew Carpenter: The album was crafted in one project file so the tracks smoothly drift into each other, think of it as a singular piece.
A philosopher's stone.
Once this was agreed we visualised how it would evolve through-out. Establishing the tone, John (Heavenly Bodies) put forth the idea of reusing textures and refining them for the ending tunes.
F&M was planned to be the final work as Ourá, after the completion I remembered we had a few forgotten track concepts. So we did what any artists would do, opened them.
The true magnum opus is to come.
Chris McCreary: You’ve released numerous titles on your labels over the last few years, including single-artist albums, collaborative albums, and compilations. What title(s) would you recommend as the starting point for somebody who maybe reads this interview and wants to check out The Silvery Water?
Drew Carpenter: I would start from the beginning. Heavenly Bodies - Prima Materia, the ending track is simply gorgeous.
Or listen to what artwork draws you in.