Samantha Whates
Early Works EP
Self Released
28 April 2023
Scottish singer-songwriter Samantha Whates has built a solid reputation on the London folk and roots circuit. This new release, despite the Early Works title, is not her dusting down unreleased material; instead, it refers to going back to the sound of her early recordings (something she found the time to do during lockdown) and, with those songs, exploring events of childhood that provide the touchstones that form the adults we become. As such, these are decidedly lo-fi Casio and Fisher Price bedroom pop, put together using old keyboards and tape decks. The EP opens with the brief fairground carousel instrumental Oh Boy! before the tinny percussive and piano backing and multi-tracked vocals of The Mirror, a song about that sense of somehow being stuck (“I’ve come to know/That I can’t go, I can’t go/Everywhere I go/I’m still here, I’m still there”) and the anticipation of some impending change (“I’m waiting on a wave/To wash me away /I’m waiting on a wave/To clean up my brain”).
A dreamy, whimsical swayer with a puttering beat and (a reminder of how well she pairs with Ida Wenøe) airy double-tracked vocals, Go Away / Stay Away comes over like the angst of adolescent heartbreak (“Break down the door/(Use the whistle and light to attract attention)/Abandon me again/Abandon me forever more”), ending with an unaccompanied intro to Everybody Trust which unfolds into a vaguely Latin-jazz flavoured number about teenage outbursts (“I see you look scared/When I start shouting out loud/what’s in my head”) and questioning the world around (“If you all tell lies to me/Anything like me/And it’s hard to believe in me/And it’s hard to believe in anything I see/Cos you all tell lies to me”) that wouldn’t be out of place in a 60s London beat movie soundtrack.
While Early Works may not be an indication of where her next album might be at, the time she devoted to its creation during lockdown was an undeniably sweet diversion.
Early Works is released on 28 April exclusively on Bandcamp and 19th May on wider streaming platforms.
Order via Bandcamp: https://samanthawhates.bandcamp.com/album/early-works-ep