Single Premiere, "Voices" by Samuel Campoli
Photographed by Kelsey Wagner
"Voices", the first track from the debut project of Brooklyn-based songwriter and producer, Samuel Campoli, was the result of a year in the woods of a town in the Hudson Valley. Heavily influenced by early folk-rock pioneers George Harrison and Neil Young as well as outsider artists Skip Spence and Ted Lucas, Samuel brings some nuance to a more nostalgic sounding folk-rock. Featuring Ben Roberts (Ötherbänd and Rangutang) on drums, Dan Kleederman (Throw Vision, Julia Anrather, Underorder) on lead guitar, Gary Timpane on bass and engineered by Clemens Knieper. You can listen to "Voices", the first song from Samuel's upcoming EP streaming below.
On his process of collaborating with others...
I've mostly made music by myself, so for this I wanted things more live and energetic sounding. So naturally, I moved in with a drummer and a bass player. The process was basically me bringing demos to Ben and Gary, and us figuring out how to translate the parts. Since I am pretty basic on the drums, Ben really came up with most of the drum parts. Gary brought a lot of life to the bass as well! Dan and Clemens contributed in Voices shredding and engineering respectively.
On his secluded life in the woods...
It's really not how it sounds! It was at least more of a Big Pink situation than Bon Iver... I was definitely inspired with so few distractions, but a big part of the desire to live in a place like Claverack was the ability to affordably setup a home recording space to futz around in. I collected some equipment over the years and was excited to finally have an adequate space where I could use it. Plus the ability to look up from what you're working on and see something beautiful out the window is pretty huge. Even when we were in long recording sessions we'd take breaks in beautiful green grass and feel great going back to it.
On Claverack, the title of his forthcoming EP...
Claverack is the town. It is very secluded, which is wonderful for playing music. We looked at a bunch of houses in a bunch of towns, but a big reason we chose Claverack was the big Frankenstein house. It was bizarre and probably haunted. It is also right by Hudson, another really awesome town. It’s a young creative place, and actually a lot of my friends lived there and still do.
On his favorite things about being Upstate and being back in Brooklyn...
I love and hate things about both places. I miss the quietness and aloneness of upstate, especially being able to go outside and be alone. At the same time I have met so many cool people just in my short time back in the city. So many musicians doing interesting stuff to learn from, especially in an engineering sense.