You, Forever | Sam Evian

The swooning and sunburned Sam Evian balances wit and introspection with the breeze of summer. 

You, Forever

I get frustrated against the current that I'm not even swimming in -- I'm standing as a failing monument in the shoulder deep water. My arms and hands are spread forward to hold at length the relaxed and breathing water that shifts me gently. The push and pull and persistence is surprising. It's tiring until I stop every twitching muscle and watch as my legs begin to lift, holding surface tension against the water, and my tired arms float. Like the strangely calming stir and toss of the washing machine simply flowing through its cycles, the beat of Sam Evian's opening track, "IDGAF" churns more than it drives. The lilting waves carry and propel me forward as the quivering tremolo grows. 

On the lonely "Anybody", the irony that his sudden chorus "who will look out for me?" bursts with a vocal harmony walking alongside him touches on a pulse of the album. He is alone, making a fire on the beach, but feet away from the boardwalk and a giant PA system. As a gull on the breeze, it's easy to feel the heat of the sun, and ignore the glistening light on the waves. 

The "Octopus's Garden" guitar squawk and gurgle of "Country" brings me up for air when my feet get too cool in the water beneath the surface. Sam's returning theme and chant of "free" offers a blessing and declares a sentencing to my body - reminding me to stay in motion when my eyes glaze into the horizon.

 As "Country" brakes to a halt, tossing you from the rambling wagon, "Next to you" slips into aural vision. Enormously tall, dark curtains are drawn back above a stage with a wave of the hand and strings begin accompanying a twinkling guitar. The velvet cords tying back the theater curtains aren't yet secured when Evian's voice comes to us above a gentle acoustic guitar. He's sitting just off-center stage, his bare feet dangling over the edge of the stage. 

Most of these jangly, swingin' tracks feel like vignettes --the image is tilted until it's almost upright and straight and then the story shifts. 

Deceptively lazy, (there's a track called "Summer Day", people.) these controlled images and memories focus on what is often missed the first time around. He is perpetually observant, and hides the real sweetness of the album in his shrug: they're just tunes, man. 

Problems aren't forgotten but "late at night I can find a little peace on the highway." When he quietly sings about the "dark, dark night", we feel it, suspended above the expanse in the warm water, and beneath it, as we float under the open, glimmering sky. Like some mid-century coming of age novel, the languid waves and sun-soaked background vocals participate in the narrative: his youth, self-aware and also blinding, drags us to see light in everything. 

Singularity | Jon Hopkins

Jon Hopkins' focused release, Singularity, is a cerebral and immersive journey. 

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