Looking for a blissful album or a record just to chill to, well, you can relax and let the ‘Silkidrangar Sessions’ from Samaris sweep over you. A companion to last year’s debut, it contains re-worked tracks from that original,recorded live in session.
The idea for the ‘Sessions’ album became about, as singer Jófríður describes -“To try and capture the moments that happen live when we surprise each other and play around with our parts. I guess the main difference between ‘Silkidrangar’ and the ‘Sessions’ album lies within the rawness and improvisation that the sessions contain and the speediness with which they were recorded - we deliberately went into the studio with only a very loose idea of what we wanted to come out with.”
Recorded over two days in Reykjavík, the band invited contributions from local musicians who added tabla drums, cello, saxophone and modular synth to the record. “Before recording we'd play them the song once, loosely describe the arrangement and then hit record,” says Jófríður. “The unexpected element, the session player, who has never heard the song and has a completely different feel for it, added that extra thing it needed to make it fresh & unique. We allowed ourselves to play them for as long as needed so a song that used to be 3 minutes is perhaps now 7 or 8.”
Hailing from Iceland where artists always seem to have a distinctive sound, Samaris have really created a vast musical landscape on the sessions album, whist the ethereal sound is there as the base, the music veers to many different tangents which in turn, makes the album so interesting.
Samaris really could become quite a visionary band; we eagerly await the next instalment of their career.
Pete
9/11
Side One
01 Intro
02 Ég vildi fegin
03 Lífsins ólgudub
04 Þótt hann rigni
Side Two
05 Hrafninn
06 Brennur Slauga
07 Nótt (One for the Girls)