Sam Sweeney has announced ‘Solo’ (4th Feb), the first in a series of EPs that will highlight different members of the band who performed and recorded on his acclaimed album ‘Unearth Repeat‘, released in 2020. When we interviewed Sam about the album here, he was clear that this was an album driven by the sheer love of music:
“It sounds kind of cliched, but this is about good music and not much else, so I got Ben Nicholls because he’s the best bass player I’ve ever met, his groove is unbelievable; Jack Rutter is a phenomenal groovy [guitar] player, and I love him, and then there’s Louis Campbell. For the last three years, I’ve been Artistic Director for the National Youth Folk Ensemble and Louis came as a sixteen-year-old and auditioned for that and was astonishing throughout the whole process. I just knew he was a supreme musician and I couldn’t wait to play with him. When he went off to college and my job came to an end, I thought ‘Right, I’m going to make an album with two guitarists, and one of them is going to be Louis’. He’s only nineteen, but he’s totally brilliant, and he absolutely got what I wanted, he did exactly the right thing, and I hope it’s the start of an amazing career for him.” Dave Mackay also features on piano and keyboards.
I’m looking forward to the rest of this EP series but to kick things off, it seems only right that Sam should lead the way…you can hear the opening track below featuring one of two Untitled Waltzes from the manuscript of Thomas Wrigley (1755) and “Tweedside”, a tune he re-learned from Rob Harbron and Miranda Rutter, having originally learned and played it with Andy Letcher on the English Acoustic Collective Summer School in 2006.
‘Solo’ was recorded in September 2021 with long time collaborator Andy Bell at St Martin’s church in Stoney Middleton in the Peak District. St Martin’s used to be Sam’s practice room. He spent three very happy years living in Stoney Middleton and being able to pop across the road with his fiddle to play and swim in the glorious acoustic of the village’s octagonal church was a special thing. The tunes on this EP are, for the most part, the result of digging into old collections sent to Sam during the multiple lockdowns of 2020 and 2021.
‘Not many positives came from being locked down, but unearthing these old melodies and moving into them provided me with such joy in an otherwise dark and musically lonely time.’ Sam Sweeney
‘Solo’ is available digitally from Bandcamp and all other digital music providers, Hudson Records hope to be able to make the final collection of EPs available physically at some point.
Pre-Order via Bandcamp: https://samsweeney.bandcamp.com/
Find out more on Hudson Records website here.
Also, check out the Hudson Club which is full of very tempting exclusives: https://hudsonrecords.co.uk/club/about-hudson-club