_SAM by JacksorJacksor | Richard Jackson

_SAM is a six-track record that is the culmination of a year of songwriting, recording and producing. Work began on _SAM on 1st January 2024 as a New Year's resolution and it will be released on 31st December 2024 - New Year's Eve.

The key theme throughout _SAM is "time" - how time is spent, focused, wasted, dedicated, abused, appreciated. How time is taken for granted. How time is stolen. How time should be treasured. How time may truly the most important thing we have.

Inspirations for _SAM include Zelda developer quotes, the sound of Penarth seafront, Microsoft Outlook calendar layouts, Spike Milligan poems, the shadow aspect, the actions of Wynn Alan Bruce, Bartok string quartets and the bowing of an electric guitar.

With instrumentation built around piano, guitar, flutes, clarinets and 'cello, the tracks of _SAM are organised with symmetry in mind, moving from light to dark and back again.


The original idea for this release was a "Song A Month" project, where I'd write, record and release a song each month. I wanted to dedicate focussed effort on improving my recording and production skills, so each month could serve as a snapshot of progress, the most honest artistic diary I could keep.


January, February and March all went to plan, with songs written, recorded and released on time. Each of them then even received a lyric video from my good friend Matthew Creed, which I think are absolutely brilliant and am truly honoured that I get to provide music for him to go off and be incredible at.


Then April came along, and things fell apart a little. I'd written my song for that month but I just couldn't find the time or space to record it properly. I ended up taking a short break from recording, which became a long break, which became considerably longer than I'd planned. I essentially fell into an artistic paralysis over the recording of this one song.


In November, with the end of the year in sight, I took a week off work and focused on re-recording April's song, alongside recording two other songs I'd written since then.


Unintentionally splitting the creative year has resulted in _SAM being something of a two-act release. Personally, I found some odd symmetries between the two halves, so reordered the track list away from being directly chronological to compliment the overall musical shape shape, built around the abstract pairings of tracks 1-6, 2-5 and 3-4. Makes me happy to think of them like that anyway.


Thank you for spending your time with these tracks.


Here's to a happy New Year.


_SAM by JacksorJacksor
01 Peacock Vow (January)
02 Scuttle (February)
03 Colour Me In (March)
04 Wine-dark (June)
05 Backbone (May)
06 Boundless (April)


p.s. if you want more of a breakdown on the _SAM project somewhat going off the rails, please look for my YouTube video "_SAM IS DEAD LONG LIVE _SAM | A musical New Year's Resolution Retrospective". It's a fun reminder of how hard it was to finish this, even partially, and I'm so, so glad that I did.

Attempting to be a net positive.

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