Ethereal folk artist Will Samson releases “A Certain Surprise”

Will Samson

Releases New Single

‘A Certain Surprise’

 

Listen Here

New Album ‘Active Imagination’ due 6th May

 

Pre-order The Album Here

Will Samson is releasing ‘A Certain Surprise’, the final single to be lifted from his new album. Initially built around a treated piano arpeggio, Samson’s ethereal falsetto binds the song together as it builds to a quietly euphoric finish. As with previous singles from his new album, these are songs that give the quality of waking from a dream; and indeed it is from lucid dreaming that much of the lyrical content was written. Following previous singles ‘Arpy’ and ‘Shun’ which both came out earlier this year, ‘A Certain Surprise’ completes the singles from ‘Active Imagination’, which is due on 6th May with the vinyl following on 24th June.

‘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, 2022

29.07: Uebel & Gefährlich, Hamburg DE *
31.07: Columbia Theater, Berlin DE *
7.09: The Jam Jar, Bristol UK

* Supporting Efterklang