HE’S QUITE the scion of British solo saxophone, is Samuel Sharp; not, perhaps, on the face of it, an easy thing to comprehend, but what he’s offering over what’s now a triad of single drops and next month’s album, Patterns Various, is experimental, pretty, dubby, evocative; pastoralist, impressionist, and I think an album which will be looked back on as a chronicle of our times captured so well in solo instrumentation – almost like the Mass Observation projects of the mid-20th century, it seems to both encapsulate and evoke some of the vital and quotidian things about what it means to be alive.
He’s just released the clean-lined animation for “Dawn Rises”, which is the album’s lead track, sensibly. It’s a bright reveille of Samuel’s saxophone in joyously dubby conversation with itself, an echoing answer of the unfurling motifs adding contrapuntal depth and complexity.
It also, more importantly, happens to be extremely pretty.
Sam says: “The story behind the track takes us to the English countryside; [I] met up with some old friends to go camping in the Cotswolds.
“[I] was the first to wake up in the morning and as looked out across the valley; the sun was slowly rising, and could see nature gradually coming to life across the fields, complete with mist swirling and animal noises from a nearby farm.”
He adds: “The second, more warming, chordal section mirrors the contentment and familiarity of being surrounded by old friends.” And I’d defy you to find fault with that contention.
Samuel Sharp’s Patterns Various will be released digitally by Boot Cycle Audio on February 19th; you can pre-order your copy from Samuel’s Bandcamp page, here.
You can follow Samuel at his website, on Twitter, at Bandcamp, on Instagram, Facebook and at his label, Bootcycle Audio.
