1/2/2024 0 Comments Radioeins satire showIt didn’t, fortunately it just started over! And it’s been getting bigger ever since.” The flying sparks ignited Sam’s creative engine, too, and before long, he had an LP’s worth of new songs on his hands, each in its own way inspired by the fragile promise of having something to lose again – or someone. “When it first became clear that I wouldn’t be able to return to New York for the time being, my whole world felt like it was going to end. Sam describes the experience as seeing “actual light” again at the end of the tunnel for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. “You couldn’t make this sh*t up,” he chuckles. Still, he didn’t hesitate to meet the moment, and so began a period of professional recognition and personal upheaval or, in Sam’s own words: “I didn’t sleep for a year.” Then came the biggest plot twist of the whole dizzying series - he fell in love. When his music started to make waves, Sam was stranded in Switzerland for the first time since his teens. It still feels like a small miracle that anyone cared about my music while we were all going through this pretty bleak time,” Sam says with a touch of Swiss understatement. “The last couple of years took their toll on me like they did on all of us, but they also gave me a lot to be thankful for. ‘Never Let Me Go’, by contrast, was inspired by new beginnings. The shock, grief and solitude of that experience went on to shape Sam’s first album. Sam was touring in Europe when the pandemic pulled the plug on live music and Sam’s return to New York City, his chosen home of the previous decade. Sam’s prolific output speaks for itself: prior to Power Ballads, he was making a name with those “smokey baritone vocals” ( Under The Radar) in his Slow Drugs EP (2020), which Sam released shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19. Wasting time, however, isn’t a skill you’ll find in the repertoire of the songwriter, performer and multi-instrumentalist. (as recently as May 2022, KCRW declared one of Sam’s songs Today’s Top Tune) and two Swiss Music Award-nominations. He could be forgiven for taking a quick siesta on his laurels, which include his first national chart entry, radio airplay across Europe and in the U.S. It’s been less than a year since his debut LP Power Ballads (“well-crafted set of atmospheric post-punk” - KEXP) broke Sam Himself onto the international stage. ‘Never Let Me Go’ is the soundtrack of risking another shot at hope – and dancing your heart out in the process. The lovelorn stomper is a full-body split between brazen intimacy and anthemic pop, and it marks the Big Bang of a new era for Sam Himself, the solo project of Swiss-born, Brooklyn-based artist Sam Koechlin. Sam Himself, Switzerland’s ‘ King of Tears’ and New York’s leading Fondue Western™ baritone, returns with ‘ Never Let Me Go’, the first single of the indie rocker’s upcoming second album (due out in 2023).
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