Will Samson releases second single from new album
Will Samson
Releases New Single
‘Shun’
New Album ‘Active Imagination’ due 6th May
Photo credit Gareth Jarvis
Will Samson is back with his new single ‘Shun’, a winsome song with ethereal harmonies, slowly spun guitars and gossamer synths that give the quality of waking from a dream. ‘Shun’ is the second single to be lifted from Will’s new album, following ‘Arpy’ which came out last month. His new album, ‘Active Imagination’, is due on 6th May with the vinyl following on 24th June.
“In contrast to Arpy, which took many months to be created, Shun appeared almost entirely in one day.“During one of the many lockdowns of 2020, there was a period where it poured with rain non-stop for a week, which felt like living in a submarine (hence the opening line of the song). There wasn’t much to do, so I ended up getting hooked on a dark comedy series called Flowers. I felt a strong connection with one of the characters – a Japanese artist – named Shun.“The lyrics appeared very quickly and naturally too, and the percussion sound in the track was created on the fly with a synthesizer. With all intense work that was going into making Active Imagination, I just wanted to write a simple song – and to unashamedly, openly sing about love.”
The video for ‘Shun’ was shot in Will’s old studio in Bristol where the majority of his new album ‘Active Imagination’ was recorded. Shot on 16mm film, the video sees Will playing with a tape spool as he sings along to the track, surrounded by the equipment he used to make the album.
‘Active Imagination’ is the follow-up to 2019’s ‘Paralanguage’, released via Wichita Recordings. Worked on across the span of one entire year – from January of 2020 through to December – it is comprised of nine beautiful new pieces, and sits as a richly layered meditation on the idea of belonging, identity and the search for home in the most unstable of worlds. Since the release of debut album ‘Balance’ in 2012, Bristol based Anglo-Indian artist Will Samson has steadily amassed a catalogue of haunting and immersive sounds that explore the spaces between ambient, electronic and folk music.
Will Samson’s new album, ‘Active Imagination’, illustrates a striking new depth and expansiveness within his signature sound. Named after Carl Jung’s method of dream analysis, ‘Active Imagination’ is largely inspired by the concept of lucid dreaming as a means of healthy escapism: “In order to help learn the technique, I wrote down my dreams in a notebook each morning – and took them to the studio to translate into songs.”
With maternal grandparents who were born in Chile & West Bengal (subsequently meeting in Kenya), it’s certainly true that Samson has often displayed a somewhat restless nature in both his artistic and personal life. Born in Oxford, he emigrated soon afterwards with his parents to Western Australia, where he lived for ten years before returning to the UK.
A little over a decade later, he began shifting between Oxford and Berlin, then Brighton, Lisbon, Brussels and Bristol. It’s clear to see why much of Samson’s captivating work has often explored the nature of identity and belonging.“My family tree spreads so far across the globe that I’ve often wondered if it is in my blood to be constantly moving, perhaps in a search to find a solid sense of belonging” says Samson. “With no real ancestral homeland (or rather, a multitude of them) it is easy to feel a conflicted sense of identity – even if just on a very subtle level.
These feelings would sometimes appear as dreams, which then became songs.”Dreamlike in the swirling, illusory nature of its unfolding, ‘Active Imagination’ is a testament to Samson’s continued exploration – both of the world around him and his own inner workings that continue to provide great mysteries to interpret. Patient but cryptic, Samson takes that voyage and creates a mesmerising landscape for listeners to explore, in the same way his work always has.
Will Samson Live Dates in support of Efterklang
29.07: Uebel & Gefährlich, Hamburg DE
31.07: Columbia Theater, Berlin DE