Those who soaked in the melancholic beauty of new single,‘My Love’, were given a preview of Joe Sampson‘s ability to muster maximum emotional resonance from the sparest of musical ingredients. With the official release of Joe Sampson‘s stunning new EP, Songs of Delay we now present a sublime five-track EP of Sampson’s consummate songcraft. If that wasn’t enough the EP has graciously been made available for free download so there’s no excuse to not become a fan.
Across its 13-minute run-time, Joe Sampson patiently unfurls a perfectly formed suite of acoustic vignettes, each song exuding a gently mesmerising beauty. Stripped back in both instrumentation and execution, with additional vocals by Nathaniel Rateliff on ‘Songbird’, the EP leaves its raw, emotional core exposed, evoking the comfortably sad acoustic tones of Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen. Ornamented with often darkly humorous lyrics, intoned in a soft yet road-worn baritone, Sampson’s intimate, emotive songs draw you in, gradually weaving their subtle magic.
Head over to Joe Sampson’s Bandcamp and grab your free download of Songs of Delay. Read more about Joe Sampson here.
“Joe Sampson creates a lot with a little. Maybe it was his family roots of a barbershop quartet that lead to the minimalism of his craft. Maybe it was his collaborations with Nathaniel Rateliff and Esme Patterson, or maybe it’s just because he doesn’t need to add any bells or whistles to his songs. The Denver songwriter, who took home Songwriter of the Year from Westword in 2008 and was hailed as the rarely seen and mythical musical unicorn by Hey Reverb, has just released his stark, EP Songs of Delay — a stunning 13-minute journey straight into the heart of superb songwriting and a simple, austere but elegant presentation of those songs.” – The Marquee