Sam Amidon today announced his ninth album, Willing Brother Knowing, out February 26, 2027, via River Lea Records. The same label that released Salt River in 2025, which Danny Neill described as the “most fully realised solo release of his career”. American saxophonist Sam Gendel produced that album, and we chose it as one of our Best Albums of the Year. Neill noted in his review how the raw acoustic textures married avant-garde found sound and electronics, alongside folk tunes connected to shape note singing in the 1700s and material by some of the twentieth century’s most visionary (and legendary) artisans.
This time around, he called on Big Thief drummer James Krivchenia to produce the album. We get our first taster with Innisfree out today alongside a music video directed by Allyn Quigley, who also directed the video for ‘I’m On My Journey Home’ from ‘Salt River’. Innisfree is Amidon’s setting of the W.B. Yeats poem, a joyous response to some of the old lyrics mourning elsewhere. He replants the 1889 lyric in a contemporary landscape, with Isaac Alderson drawing out the stanzas on uilleann pipes and Thomas Bartlett (Doveman) dancing in the song’s inexorable margins. “I will arise and go now,” Amidon sings, as if it’s a song for tomorrow.
When we interviewed Amidon about Salt River, he shared how Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Electric Ladyland’ changed his life as a teenager. In the accompanying press for his new album, it touches on an alternative universe featuring Hendrix, as a way of explaining the shape of this album, a little like Salt River, there are many layers to it, but hasn’t that always been the way with Amidon? It’s what makes his music so appealing. It reads:
Is there an alternative universe where Jimi Hendrix was a teenager in Vermont, in the 90s, and also was obsessed with Irish fiddling while growing up in a family contra dance band at a time when punk-folk was a thing that the kids would have been into, in addition to shape note singing? Because sure, Willing Brother Knowing is a folk LP. It is made of songs and lyrics drawn from folk traditions. But Willing Brother Knowing is also rock and roll; a rock quilt made from folk fabrics.
‘Willing Brother Knowing’ is out on February 26, 2027, via River Lea.
Pre-Order here: https://samamidon.ffm.to/willing
Live Dates
Nov 11 – Ann Arbor, MI – The Ark*
Nov 12 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall*
Nov 13 – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway*
Nov 15 – Charleston, WV – Mountainstage*
Nov 18 – Richmond, VA – The Broadberry*
Nov 19 – Asheville, NC – The Orange Peel*
Nov 21 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle*
Nov 22 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle*
* with Hiss Golden Messenger