Sam Himself – Switzerland’s acting ‘King of Tears,’ New York’s leading Fondue Western™ baritone, newly minted HBO Max alumn – shares his second album, Never Let Me Go (Jan. 27, 2023 via Sony Music).
The ten-track LP marks the latest collaboration of "Swiss-born, Gotham-bred" (SPIN) indie rocker Sam Koechlin with his longtime producer / "Second Beatle" Daniel Schlett (Iggy Pop; The War on Drugs) and mastering engineer Greg Calbi (David Bowie; Bruce Springsteen), featuring Chris Egan (Solange; Blood Orange) on drums and Josh "JD" Werner (Ghostface Killah; CocoRosie) on bass.
Leading up to the release, album singles Never Let Me Go (July 22, 2022), the album's title track; Golden Days (Sept. 16, 2022); and Mr. Rocknroll (Nov. 11, 2022) offered a taste of what to expect of the two-time Swiss Music Award nominee's sophomore effort: according to the artist, Never Let Me Go is Sam's soundtrack for the first day after what looked like the last, buoyed by the madness of a rapidly accelerating career trajectory, the thrill of touring again, and the promise of a reopening world whose studios, stages and dance floors we get to share again at long last.
To dress for the occasion, Sam teamed up with Swiss fashion house YVY for a signature line of Sam Himself Buckle Trousers, launched jointly with the Mr. Rocknroll single release and flaunted extensively in the song's music video. In addition to Sam, YVY counts Madonna and Billie Eilish among its fans, according to the New York Times.
Heartland, the album's focus track, “finds Sam Himself at his most warm and soulful, offering up a soaring sound that brings hints of The Killers and The War on Drugs into the mix,” according to Under The Radar Magazine.
In Sam's own words, "Heartland is my own personal road movie, vintage Fondue Western cinema shot through the lens of someone who only has eyes for one other person, gunning a stuffy Prius across the United States just to be with them. If that sounds over the top, it is.”
Swap out the Toyota Prius for a cramped tour bus and you'll get the music video for Heartland, an eclectic collage of live footage, fan videos and self-made recordings of Sam and his band on the road. That's where you'll find the artist for most of 2023: Sam is on tour throughout the year, with stops in New York, Berlin, Vienna and an official showcase at this year's Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg (GE).
Barely a year after Sam's debut album Power Ballads, a “well-crafted set of atmospheric post-punk” (KEXP), broke Sam onto the international stage in late 2021, KCRW revealed that Power Ballads single La Paz was a Top Ten fan favorite within the station's Today’s Top Tune segment. In June 2023, the song was included in the soundtrack of HBO Max's And Just Like That (S2E02).
Prior to Power Ballads, Sam was already making a name for himself and his “smokey baritone vocals” (Under The Radar) with Slow Drugs (2020), the EP he released shortly after the outbreak of COVID-19. The artist 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. The shock and solitude of that experience went on to shape Sam’s first album, on which Sam performed and recorded most instruments himself from a variety of DYI home studios.
“His deep, rich vocals remind us of the beauty that exists even during the darkest times.”
Never Let Me Go, by contrast, was inspired by new beginnings.
“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. 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, not without a touch of Swiss understatement.
When his music started to make waves, Sam felt "stranded" in his hometown of Basel, Switzerland, for the first time since his teens. Still, he didn’t hesitate to meet the moment. Thus 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, according to Sam: he fell in love.
“You couldn’t make this sh*t up,” he chuckles, describing the experience as seeing “actual daylight” again at the end of the proverbial tunnel for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. “When it became clear that I wouldn’t be going back to New York anytime soon, my whole world felt like it was going to end. It 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.
To record his new material, Sam Himself rejoined forces with his longtime creative partner, New York City-based producer and engineer Daniel Schlett. The pair had previously managed to produce most of Power Ballads remotely, exchanging home recordings while Sam was in "exile."
“Sam Himself uses a vocal power somewhere between The National's Matt Berninger and San Fermin's Allen Tate to sing songs of finding your place.”
