Label: Self-released / Zavod Orbita
Release date: 24.09.2018
Production: Samuel Blues
Album length: 48.01
Genre: Singer / Songwritter (Blues, Alternative Rock)
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Two studio albums in a single year. These days that’s more the exception than the rule. Unless you’re Samuel Blues, that is! In the first half of this year he put out his fourth studio album, »Alpska psihadelija« (RockLine review HERE), and in the second half it was joined by a fifth, »Sammy Automatic«. The titles of both albums alone reveal the logic behind releasing two studio albums in such quick succession. Just to hint at it up front: if the first one is all-Slovenian in its lyrics, the second is all-English. So with his new album, Samuel Blues goes back to his first three (all-)English ones. Expressing himself in English verses clearly suits him better, even though »Alpska psihadelija« proved that Samuel Blues can hold his own, quite triumphantly and with plenty of charm, in his native language too.
So yes! The two albums are very different. Noticeably different. If »Alpska psihadelija« was truly yet another Renaissance »one man band« outpost, »Sammy Automatic« is still technically a »one man band« album, but it doesn’t necessarily feel like one. The arrangements are more varied. Samuel Blues is trying his hand at (for him) new musical challenges. At the same time he stays lucid and dark, really, with his humming and his scorched, cracked grumbling, »biting and gallows-humored« all the way through. The vocal gives the compositions an essential, truly integral element of artistic expression. Without that use of the voice, Samuel Blues could declare »artistic bankruptcy« on the spot.
The album was recorded »in one take«. First try. It doesn’t matter how stubbornly the notes »stick out« from each other in the tuning. It doesn’t even matter if a chord stirs up some dissonance. Do It Again is distinctly punk-rock gallows-humored, and with the vocal approach Samuel Blues uses, the out-of-tune, garage-style ramshackle guitar phrasing couldn’t run alongside it any better. With tracks like the opener Fat Bird and later Do It Again, as well as Catch My Radio, he comes close to the expressive value of alt-rock acts of Slovenian origin, such as the eternal garage usurpers of sonic terror Dandelion Children. 8 AM and Alright deftly trade on inspiration from the Delta blues. They also answer the question of why Samuel Blues was such a fitting choice as the support act for Eric Sardinas at his show at Figa Rock Bar in Koper in November 2014. If You Can’t Don’t Bother dispels any suspicion that Samuel Blues wouldn’t occasionally strum the »zither« of psychedelia too. The very intense closer Mountain Life points that out. Brilliantly instrumental, biting stuff, which makes it easy to call to mind the »weariness of Slovenian hillwalkers«.
On the new album Samuel Blues paid a bit more attention to »coloring« the arrangements. He partly backed up the album’s generally acoustic backbone with added lines of bigger decibel output. That way he contrasted the lines themselves, filled out the sonic landscape and strengthened the atmosphere of the tracks. He also very skillfully colored a few songs by tastefully weaving modulations into them (Catch My Radio), breaking up the risk of the tracks sliding into the »boredom of monolithic phrasing«. At the same time he added extra sampled rhythm to certain tracks, which still keeps the product completely organic and »live« in nature. We can say that in this respect Samo Pivač has become an even more mature composer by one more step. True Bypass is the longest track, and yet it positively brims with minimalist tricks. To get some movement into the basic riff, which seems to have no end in its repetitions, Samuel Blues found help here in memorizing the lead phrase, and laid additional, utterly bizarrely simple, single-note lines on top of it.
All of this was recorded in one piece, and what’s interesting about the production is that the vocal grumbling in the sonic picture is actually often a little bit muffled. Samuel Blues is anything but a singer, after all. And that’s exactly what brings the added value to his music. His singing embodies everything we imagine under the coined term of a true anti-vocal! And that is precisely what brings one of the greatest expressive charms to his records. The new album is no different. Without this approach to the vocal delivery, Samuel Blues, as a singer-songwriter, would lose all of his expressive uniqueness, elementality, quirkiness, bizarreness and, above all, uncommonness.
Samuel Blues is an incredibly special and entertaining Slovenian music story. He’s an exceptionally interesting mix of psychedelic blues and alternative rock. Since Samuel Blues is an independent, we can use the word indie here totally legitimately. He’s cheeky, he’s dark, and he’s also unbelievably sarcastic and fun. The gallows humor of true Gorenjska humor couldn’t get a better definition than what his studio releases embody. A thoroughly »Gorenjska album«, just like the Gorenjska town of Jesenice, where he’s from. »Sammy Automatic« is just one more step on this musician’s path of self-evolution, through which Samuel Blues strengthens his expressive originality and uniqueness. Incredibly fun and special musical reading. If you’re after boldness, rawness and uncommonness, can’t stand kitsch and frills, and are looking for authentic organic sound and an approach with no brakes, you simply must check out what Samuel Blues is up to. If you haven’t done so by now, you’re missing a great reason for some top-notch fun and a good time. And in the end: it’s incredible what a lo-fi production and the free-spirited purism of D.I.Y. logic can accomplish.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
rating: 8.5 / 10
Track list:
1. Fat Bird (02:44)
2. Alright (02:26)
3. Do It Again (04:42)
4. 8AM (04:12)
5. Catch My Radio (05:00)
6. Did My Time (02:51)
7. 44 Kicks (03:26)
8. If You Can’t Don’t Bother (05:11)
9. What If I? (03:17)
10. True Bypass 06:35)
11. Magic Arrow (03:07)
12. Mountain Life (04:25)
Line-up:
Samuel Blues – vocals, guitar
