Today sees the release of Dharma, the stunning new EP from Samana, exploring mythic landscapes, forgotten memories, and the innate search for freedom and peace.
We’ve written before about Samana‘s inspiring and unconventional journey. The musical and artistic vehicle of Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett, towards the end of last year, we shared the first of two singles from their new EP Dharma, which is out today.
The first EP single was Two Wrongs, inspired by the Polaroid work of photographer Mike Brodie, whose work was heavily influenced by the “transient subculture of freight train riders”. Brodie hopped his first train at 17, close to his home in Pensacola, Florida and ended up going in the wrong direction. Fate seemed to constantly play its hand, from discovering a camera behind a car seat to his decision to start taking pictures of the many characters and friends he has spent time with when walking, hitchhiking, and train-hopping for free across America. This also seems to echo the very spirit of this duo, who have described Dharma as the innate search for freedom, the deep intricacies of love and the mysticism of the neolithic age; Dharma evokes an ethereal landscape to lose oneself to, venturing forth into what it is to feel; what it is to be.
The following single, Seven Years, was a Song of the Day; the soft expansion of its instrumentation provides the EP’s most contained moment. Representative of a metaphysical dawn, it searches for forgotten memories, drifting between – or perhaps suspended within – both piercing light and enveloping dark. Rebecca explains;
“‘Seven Years’ evokes the liminal exchange between oneself and the embers that burn within an entrancing fire, fusing fragmented memories and abstract visions, as they emerge, collide and transform into a dream-like sequence. The allegorical tapestry of ‘Seven Years’ is woven with motifs, representative of the physical and metaphysical periods of growth and change, offering us a passage into an artistic exploration of the ancient notion of the seven year cycle; of life itself and that of renewal.”
The final two tracks are equally thought-provoking in all their tangled beauty. Into the Wild reflects on escaping the longing of the mind and the chaos of life. Inspired by the likes of Ruess, Thoreau and, of course, Christopher McCandless, “…all of whom followed an innate and inextricable invocation to journey forth into the heart of a wilderness, confronting the human condition in pursuit of a deep peace.” The title is also the name of the film adaptation of Jon Krakauer’s biography on McCandless, which I highly recommend if you’ve not seen it.
The final track, The Preselis, is inspired by a landscape closer to home – “…the vast mythological landscapes that stretched across West Wales, ‘The Preselis’ incarnates an ancient pilgrimage, written in devotion to this breadth of land mapped by stone circles, prehistoric megaliths, dolmens and cairns. The song explores notions of morphic-resonance and collective consciousness inherent in ancient, neolithic civilisations. Drawing upon the impulse that archaic energy, as layers of geological sediment, can be held by a landscape, this song offers a passage of resonance with such forces, through the slow surrender of a transcendental state of consciousness.”
Samana are on tour next month.
June 6th – The Castle – Manchester
June 7th – Kitchen Garden Cafe – Birmingham
June 8th – Omeara – London
June 9th – Hope & Ruin – Brighton
More here: https://www.samanaroad.com/