Track-by-track guide: Will Samson Sings Again

introduction by tom johnson

words by will samson

Will Samson called his new album Sings Again to reflect exactly that process. Following a couple of subtly beautiful instrumental records, his new ten-song LP placed his voice back out-front of it all. It's a richly personal work, so much so that you wonder if there was a temptation to self-preserve the intimacy of the substance within voiceless soundscapes.

Whether that thought crossed his mind is by-the-by now, however, and Sings Again comes alive within Will's gentle and alluring voice, a hushed focus point that winds and weaves itself around the suitably alluring backdrop formed from a concoction of organic tape machine loops, analog synths, gorgeous strings and more.

Often decadent, always fascinating, Sings Again takes inspiration from the early works of Bjork, Four Tet, and Efterklang, but most importantly, carves out a space all of its ow creation; a hazy, conscious landscape that you can't help but feel the weight of.

Released now, and streaming in full for you right here, Will was kind enough to write a dense and thoughtful guide to each of the album's ten songs, which you can read below right now. The album is available to stream and buy on Bandcamp here.

Sings Again, by Will Samson

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0333AM

It was mid-Summer in the interior of Alentejo (one of the hottest regions of Portugal), when I was finishing up all the vocal tracking and final overdubs of Sings Again. Most of my early childhood was in Western Australia, so my heat tolerance is pretty good, but even still it was brutal sometimes.

Since I still have some insulation upgrades to make in the studio, it would slowly heat up during the day and by late afternoon was far too hot to be in there - until the evening when the temperate would plummet to a beautiful, soft, cool breeze. Then I would work on the record until the early hours of the morning.

It was a particularly hot day (probably around 40C) in my memory, when this song came to be. Whilst almost all the other songs on the record came into existence like a very slowly cooked stew over a couple of years, this one spontaneously appeared out of thin air and started as a simple experiment.

I had been drinking a cold cider and got the idea to sample the sound of blowing into the empty bottle. I immediately fell in love with it, as I made the first chord. It somehow reminded me of the mellotron on The Beatles' Strawberry Fields. So, the first sound you hear on this album is me blowing into an empty Somersby bottle at around 1am.

It is difficult to describe the feeling / experience when a fully formed song suddenly appears. It is as if the mind switches off, and you simply watch the music arrive through the fingertips and voice. Even the lyrics just seemed to fall out of my mouth, as I searched for the melody.

As the name suggests, I exported the track out of Cubase at exactly 03:33AM, before then stumbling into bed.

SIGNS OF LIFE

One of the happiest sounding songs I've made, ironically about a dark time.

A friend was recently asking about the ayahuasca ceremony that informed most of this album. I tried to summarise it by describing one of the visions I saw: a landscape of wilderness that had burnt to the ground and all I could see was darkness and ash. The album is essentially me watching this barren landscape, waiting to see the first new signs of life to arrive – understanding (as someone afterwards said to me) that ash makes great fertilizer.

There was a period of a few months after the ceremony where I felt incredibly heavy – as if there was a dead weight inside of me that I was carrying around and didn't know how to shift. I think it is fair to say that it was depression. I began psychotherapy with the excellent CCPE (a UK based organisation) who were able to steer me back to a better place.

When I sung, “a part of me died, so I waited and watched for signs of life to come”, it felt very literal.

Musically, it began as a simple experiment to see if I could create something new, using one of my favourite songs (She Just Likes To Fight by Four Tet) as a starting point / guide, which eventually morphed into its own thing.

WHALE PEBBLE

This track began as my first experiments with sampling. I was listening a lot to my friend Derwin's music at the time (Gold Panda) and wondered what would happen if I tried to make something in that style (knowing that it would end up taking a different direction along the way).

I did not have anywhere to make music at the time, so was going stir crazy. It was created on the small corner of a desk, amongst a mountain range of boxes in the spare room. There was certainly no space to set up any of my usual tape machines, so had to rely on my laptop and one microphone.

I simply took a few objects that I saw in front of me, which included: some screws, copper coins, a paintbrush, a few pebbles and a ceramic whale that a friend made for me. It didn't take long for that random collection to form some sounds that felt very exciting.

As with all of these songs, the lyrics were largely informed by experiences during the ayahuasca ceremony. Without revealing too much, the end of the 6 hour journey was a vision of a flickering light bulb. I understood clearly that the light was me and that my spirit was completely exhausted from years of fighting to try to make things happen (largely within the music industry). I heard the words “whatever you do next: be gentle with your soul”. I realise that this must all sound rather esoteric to some reading, but hopefully it makes sense when understood that these plants have been used as a profound healing tool for hundreds, if not thousands of years. This is an extremely potent psychoactive plant that must only be consumed under the correct guidance and care.

When I sung the words “there is a spark that must never ever go out” - it felt very literal.

PARALYSED

These lyrics are also a fairly literal description of the ayahuasca experience. For what felt like hours during the ceremony, I experienced an unspeakable exhaustion. I could not sleep, so was kept in a torturous cycle that felt inescapable. At times it literally felt as though my heart was fading to the point of death. It was terrifying.

Fun fact: there is a coffee grinder on this song, nestled amongst the other sampled objects that make up the percussion! The clicking sound that enters at the beginning is very likely a twig from the garden, that I snapped next to the microphone (I did this a lot).

I was listening to Bjork's early album Vespertine a lot last Summer, and tried to capture some of tones and feel of those sounds.

DARABUKA

One of my personal favourite's, but unlike 0333AM, it was a quite an ordeal to get this song over the finish line.

The sound that begins that track is a sample of my voice, made into an organ. As what usually happens, things begin life as an instrumental piece, which I get really attached to and then struggle to add vocals to.

It went through many, many different versions – one of which included a big, over the top end section...that eventually got scrapped in favour of the total minimalism that you hear now.

I was having regular calls with my friend Daudi Matsiko during the final months of vocal recording, where we would often talk about the importance of community. It is something that I have thought a great deal about these last couple of years. If only I'd realised much earlier how important good community is to having a happy life.

NUMB YEAR

Well, there is no disguising the fact that I was in a rough spot when I wrote this song. Perhaps that is why the lyrics are so exposing. There was nothing to lose in being as a clear and honest as possible without hiding behind the safety of any metaphors.

I cannot explain why, but after over a decade of writing fairly cryptic lyrics, it was suddenly as if I just did not have the energy to try and hide anymore.

The world has felt different since the pandemic and I know I am not the only one who feels much less hopeful that before. Maybe the despair expressed in this song will help someone out there feel a little less alone. I hope so.

Despite the heavy place it was created from, I think this is one of the strongest songs I have ever made.

TIME USED TO FEEL LIKE

I turned 37 last year and started to really feel the pressure of passing time.

When my first album came out, I was in my early 20's and felt so naively optimistic about the future. Living costs were low and the music scene had a sense of abundance, with this beautiful DIY spirit. I would spend most of my days just daydreaming about all the things I planned on doing and wondering where playing music may take me (miraculously, many of those dreams did become reality).

However, I started to feel strongly that perhaps time had run out and that all of those remaining hopes and plans may need to be left behind. The world has changed and I am no longer that young person brimming with wide eyed hope.

I think most of this album really captures a sense of knowing that one very long and significant life chapter is ending, but not being able to see what comes next.

The guitars were recorded on a 1970's UHER 4200 mini reel-to-reel tape machine. It was bought from an old security firm in Italy, so I'm sure has a lot of stories to tell.

A SPELL

Several months after the ayahuasca ceremony, when going to bed, I had what felt like a sudden flashback to one of the more terrifying moments of the experience. It left me in a heightened state of anxiety for a few days, that was only intensified by being alone in the countryside.

In an attempt to sooth this, I put those feelings directly into this song – reflecting on that discomfort of anxiety.

The beauty of music for me is that it can remind us that we are not islands. I always hoped that someone may hear this song and feel less alone in their anxious moments.

HARVEST HOPE

Sometimes I feel tremendously alone in the experience of being an adult in the world – especially these days where everyone is dealing with their own very real struggles. Ironically, I know that I am not the only one who feels this.

Music has often been a support to lean on in these times, but perhaps it also perpetuates the feeling too – keeping the cycle on loop. Either way, most of us probably need to better learn how to support each other and this song is in insight into those thoughts.

JULIAN'S ROCKS

Much of this album relied quite heavily on sampling sounds from various objects around the house and garden. However, this one takes a small sample from Julian Sartorius' album Hidden Tracks: Domodossola – Weissmies. He is an incredible percussionist that made an entire album comprised of trek in The Alps, simply playing on various rocks that he found along the way. These are the clicking sounds you hear throughout the track.

The 'snare' sound towards the end of the track is a large piece of bubblewrap!

It is too difficult to properly describe the meaning of this song, without writing several pages. In short, I had made a very conscious decision with this album to not write from the place of grief that had informed so much of my earlier music. It was time to leave old wounds alone. So, in this song, you can hear me wonder what might happen to begin as fresh as possible and abandon all ideas of this project called “Will Samson”.