You Should know Joe Sampson.  Why?  Because I bought his album over the weekend and it is fantastic.  So there.

Sampson’s new album “Kill Our Friends” is 17 tracks (yes, 17 tracks) of hazy, lazy Colorado days.  Not quite Americana, not quite folk but just about the right distance from each one.  There isn’t much on the album and from what I can tell didn’t have a splashy release – makes sense for the project after listening.  And listening I did.  A lot of it.  I know of Sampson from his recent collaboration as part of the band Wentworth Kersey (Sampson is Joe ‘Kersey’ Sampson) and he continues along in making some great music.  Albeit a bit less ambient and mexi-cali as the Wentworth Kersey project.  The album is loose and doesn’t take itself too seriously with background noises, talking and sounds leaking into the recordings from surroundings.  It is nice to know the album is a bit more organic than some studio recordings in the same vein.

It isn’t hard to find (click here to find on iTunes) but there is very little on him/album on the Fellow Creature Recordings label that released it (here) or on the uncompleted Bandcamp page (here) which is a bit of a shame but lends to the mystery I guess.

Listen: “Kill Our Friends” – Joe Sampson
(watch a live performance over on You Crazy Dreamers)

Watch a couple of videos of ‘Songbird’ (with Nathaniel Rateliff) and ‘Naked Women’.

Joe Sampson – Songbird from Erin Preston on Vimeo.

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Joe Sampson – Naked Women from Erin Preston on Vimeo.

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I have reached out to label and will hopefully hear soon in order to update y’alls on this damn fine album.  So keep an eye/ear out.

~Smansmith