Speaking about his Island Rains EP ahead of its release, Samual Blaney reflected on one of the simplest actions he could undertake to navigate these times of chaos. For him, planting a seed is a simple idea but one that carries incredible potency. He explained this some more: “Grow something. A flower. A vegetable. This is how I want to live. Rains in Ireland, or on any small island, are a constant companion. They feel wonderful on an island, a reminder of the beautiful patterns of nature.” All of this does permeate the music we are now able to listen to, something which Blaney must have felt too as he created these songs in moonlit reverie on the west coast of Ireland. Opening track Borderlines is a piece of creative writing that feels built and grown from the rhythm up, which is not to say it is fast-paced, but the beat of the percussive elements are solid enough for every other detail of the song to rise and fall around it. There is a suggestion that these borderlines are moving objects anyhow, like they approach and retreat just as the back and forth of the ocean tide does. Rising and falling waters are also present in the song Brother, a tune that projects melody in tandem to unstable tension in its fully felt chorus sections.
The circumstances surrounding the creation of Island Rains were dictated by personal upheaval and a desire for a similarly personal reinvention. After releasing the singles Ember and Paradise in 2023, songs that were rooted in the coastal rhythms of his native Ireland, Samuel stepped away from familiar surroundings and relocated to the Pacific Northwest. The move was motivated by a need to shift how he wanted to live; Blaney suddenly found himself working the land, planting trees, learning the slow patience of a food-forest project that will take years to reveal itself fully. That daily engagement with soil, weather and uncertainty has fed directly into the new EP. You can hear the influence of a life pared back to essentials, and a tangible sense of how tending something small becomes a way of steadying yourself against the wider world.
The creation of Island Rains also signals a new collaborative chapter for Blaney. He invited Adem Ilhan, known for his work with Fridge and Silver Columns, and composer/guitarist Neil MacColl into the fold, finding in their sensibilities a natural extension of his own understated approach. Their contributions do indeed colour the songs, but they never overwhelm them, giving Blaney space to explore the themes that have followed him from Ireland’s west coast to the American northwest. His musings often focus on companionship, distance, and the strange comfort of weather patterns that feel like old friends. Mixed in London by Andy Savours, the EP carries the imprint of these intersecting geographies and relationships. Flown has an appropriate weightlessness to those floating guitar notes before the final of the four tracks appearing here, Sheltering, points to our singer finding some solace after his ordeal. It is a piece that makes clever use of dissonance in some otherwise quite decorative notes, but nothing that knocks the overwhelming warmth of the lyric off centre. This whole release is the product of an artist learning to trust the slow burn of his own process, drawing strength from the landscapes he inhabits and the people who help bring his ideas into focus.
Island Rains (July 22, 2026) The Orchard