Will Samson

In his over 10 years of releasing records, the music of Will Samson has always been underpinned with ambient characteristics and qualities. Though often led by his tender voice, Samson’s work is deeply textural, always offering as much space for instrumental excursions as the lyrical narratives he layers above them. Until now, Will has considered his solely-ambient work more as side-projects, contemplative digressions from his more defined musical path. Having previously released an EP via 12k back in 2016, Samson returns to Taylor Deupree’s experimental label to fully embrace the genre with the release of the Harp Swells LP – his first full-length ambient album.

Conceived and composed in Almada, Portugal, in the makeshift studio space he shares with Casper Clausen of Efterklang, Harp Swells is both meditative and deliberately, consciously light. Where Samson’s previous work has been steered by melancholy – by a desire to heal himself through his music – here Will strives for brightness; an antidote to the frustrations that had swelled within him over the past few years.

Will views his new work as an ‘anti-algorithm’ record. Consisting of six movements, and fundamentally shaped by his use of a UHER 4200, a 1970's era portable tape recorder that intricately ties the whole album together, Harp Swells is designed to be consumed in one sitting, front to back. While he’s aware that this will could work against him in many ways, for the first time Will is releasing his latest album free of inhibitions and, perhaps most importantly, any expectations.

Carrying that outlook through the entire project, Will made a pledge to himself that any time he began to feel frustrated with the creative process, he would step away from the music to watch the river outside his studio windows, to remind himself that the album should feel as easy and free flowing as the water.