Reflective Hands presents Will Samson
Reflective Hands is Proud to Present Electronic / folk artist Will Samson. Marking ten years since the release of Balance, his 2012 debut, Will Samson’s new album Active Imagination feels almost like the product of his learning and growth over the past decade. For the first time, he allowed himself a dedicated studio space outside of his home, a blessing for both his mental health and workflow, while he also upgraded his tools, finally purchasing a good vocal microphone of his own, and a new laptop that didn’t constantly overheat and crash, allowing him to upgrade his recording software for the first time in years. While these somewhat mundane details may seem superfluous, for someone who’s spent so much time in flux, they brought about a stability that Samson’s work has so often been unable to find. Musically it bends subtly between folk and electronica, where little pulses of experimental flourishes sit next to Samson’s evocative vocals, and the record pulls many of its reference points from a number of the artists he’s shared a stage with over the years: from Bon Iver’s S. Carey, through to The Album Leaf, Olafur Arnalds, and Do Make Say Think. Where previous efforts were informed hugely by his work with tape machines, here he uses more live percussion than ever before. His long-time collaborator Beatrijs De Klerck provides strings, Rachael Dadd adds subtle backing vocals, but its Will’s unique vision that gently comes alive throughout the album. Influenced by Sgt Pepper's and Luke Abbott’s Translate LP, Samson pushed himself to new heights, completely reworking and re-recording some initial tracks when he realised he wasn't creatively extending himself far enough. The finished result is a mesmerising testimonial to learning self-love and growing inner- confidence, as well as the aforementioned examination of identity. Indeed, some of the songs were also pulled from Samson’s attempts to learn lucid dreaming during the initial lockdowns of 2020. Many of the album’s lyrics are simple descriptions of these dreams, which Will documented with a dedicated dream diary: ’Juvenita’, for example, was directly lifted from a dream Samson had about walking through an empty Indian city with his ancestors.
