solo album announcement!
Album Announcement!!
Dear friends,
I am extremely excited to announce my first full-length album, "Still," which will be released on January 20 (which also happens to be my birthday)! It's an ambient, meditative album of improvised saxophone and live electronics music, and the culmination of approximately 7 years of musical exploration and development. It started with a desire to be able to improvise using my saxophone but create sounds much larger than I could make as a single person playing one instrument. I was also in need of a more meditative, slower-paced musical outlet than I had in my fast-paced jazz environment at the time. To accomplish those creative/spiritual goals, I created my own software (which I treated as an extension of my instrument) that I could interact with live to multiply the sound of my saxophone, creating layers, textures, and harmonies that were otherwise impossible in real time. The randomness built into the program means I am never quite sure of what sound it will create next, allowing me to improvise alongside the software instrument. Over time, as I refined my approach to this form of music making, my musical focus also shifted away from jazz to the more stylistically agnostic/ambient sound of this album. This album was recorded at the acoustic gem of the Troy Savings Bank Music Hall while concerts were suspended in the summer of 2020. Everything was performed live: there are no overdubs and no added reverb anywhere on the album. The album cover (below) is from a roll of film from 2003 I recently discovered in my childhood bedroom. This is a photo of my first saxophone, which I got in mid-October of that year. It was one of the few frames from that roll of film that had any intelligible image remaining.
Pre-order the album on Bandcamp (today is "Bandcamp Friday" so I will get 100% of your pre-orders today) or find it on streaming (starting next Friday, Dec. 9). or do both! 😉
If you are in the Troy area, or want to visit, I will have an album release/birthday party on January 20, 2023. Let me know if you want to come! More details on that in a bit.
Listen and pre-order Still here
Other upcoming shows:
Dec. 9 – NOW Ensemble and Belle-Skinner at Troy Listening Room (this is our newly minted name for shows Sophia and I present in our home)
Dec. 13 – Sophia at Song City
Dec. 14 – Rajna Swaminathan (Indian percussion) and Utsav Lal (piano) duo at the Lift Series, Troy Music Hall
Until soon–
Sam
recording at the Troy Music Hall, July 24, 2020