Fittingly then, we’re very happy to share a video for the track ‘Snap’ that fulfils this dimension of the Sam Moss sound. Made by Emma Piper-Burket, a visual artist, filmmaker, and writer, the video was made at the Marble House Project, an artist colony in Vermont which she and Moss both attended. Shot on a Krasnogorsk-3—that’s an old Russian 16mm wind-up camera not an alien planet—the video comprises as a series of shots from the Vermont countryside, earthy tones which really bring out the warmth which runs through the track.

The result is what Moss describes as “a small, quiet document of our time there,” The video is reflective in more ways than one, with the wistful natural imagery interspersed with the mirrored world found on the surface of water. Indeed, this softened, indistinct version of life is perhaps the most apt for the Sam Moss sound—realism shot through the subtlest filters so that the result is slightly more diffuse and picturesque.

Neon is out now and you can get it from the Sam Moss Bandcamp page.

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Now Moss is back with a new record. Titled Neon, it’s a beautiful collection of songs that sees a songwriter working with an intrinsic sense of self-confidence. By recruiting the help of Justine Bowe, Benjamin Burns, Daniel Radin, Michael Siegel and Rachel Sumner, Moss is able to create rich and affecting songs that skirt the edges of folk, rock and country, and which never lose sight of the personal themes at their heart. As Moss describes

“I wrote many of them in and around Somerville, Massachusetts, where I live, and some in further away places, where I was out, looking back toward home. They come from the sensation of home. The feeling of rootedness… I find joy in them. Some might qualify as ‘sad’ songs but I do not hear them that way. I hope they offer a spectrum of feeling. I hope they give off a small amount of light.”

The title track transplants an authentic folk atmosphere into an urban setting. Opening with sparse guitar and Moss’s signature vocals, which deliver lines about wandering around a city at night, the song grows in intensity with gathering percussion and vocal harmonies from Bowe.

‘Flowers’ has a sinuous quality, the guitars and vocals twining together like curls of smoke, conjuring an atmosphere of nostalgia and longing. It’s a song about being at a distance from another person, of falling out touch and being connected only by potentially unrequited thoughts and reminiscence.

“So tell me the colors of your wall
Won’t you paint a picture of your room
Are your street lamps humming, did they burn out again?
Are the flowers in your neighborhood in bloom?”

It’s just one of many tracks that highlights Moss’s writing skills, his lines careful and composed and understatedly poetic. These are mostly gentle songs, but songs that are imbued with real feeling, rife with doubt and hope and longing.

Take for example ‘Slow’, a song about pining for home, the guitar charged with a certain gothic energy and propelled by Burns’s percussion as Moss sings, “I don’t belong in this room today / I belong a few state lines away.” Even the sense of conviction on ‘Allies’ reveals itself to be a mere illusion, the fleeting encounter at its heart the basis of much wistful yearning, Moss’s guitar supported with hushed harmonies and Radin’s quiet piano.

‘Shoulder’ is as much about its negative space as the song itself, conjuring the image of an empty room acting as a screen upon which thoughts and feelings are projected bright and clear. And ‘Snap’ is equally restrained, stripped back to little more than voice and guitar, an illustration of the devastating simplicity achieved by those at the top of their craft.

Final track ‘Here Again’ is one of the album’s least delicate moments, ending not quite on positivity but at least a bittersweet sense of acceptance. It’s a song about passing time, about growing older, about home, Moss detailing changes not just in the landscape around him but also in his bank account and the lines on his face. The final verse ends with a quiet sense of joy, as Moss sings

“I traced your hand on the dance floor
As the lines drew heavier on my face
In the fear of what i was asking for
To the melody you hummed, we swayed”

Neon is out now on Lost Honey Records, and available via the Sam Moss Bandcamp page.

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“When the responsibilities of adult life start tugging at your limbs from all sides, you need to prove to yourself that this thing called music is still worth your time and money. In the past few years, I’ve had to work at this music thing harder than ever before in my life. I’ve sacrificed sleep to simply find a few minutes to sit down with a guitar and write, to make it to a gig or rehearsal.”

Today we’re delighted to unveil the first single from the album. ‘Room For Love’ is what the label describes as a “big band, rollicking, Americana-y thing”, which is pretty accurate as descriptions go. Roberts fronts the ensemble that also features percussion, fiddle and pedal steel, providing all the zip and bounce needed for a late-summer slice of romantic country. What’s more, like all the best folk music, Wooden Dinosaur manage to conjure that peculiar nostalgia related to rural living, stimulating the part of the brain or soul that still yearns for honesty and simplicity – working with our hands and living from the land.

“So I took your hand and you took mine,
hey I’ve found someone to work side by side.
We laid our prayers aside for the hammer and glove,
we built a room of love.”

Working Weather is set for release on Lost Honey Records on the 30th September. You can pre-order it on vinyl, CD or download from the Wooden Dinosaur Bandcamp page. The band are also playing some album release shows in October, so be sure to head along if you are in the area:

14 October | Peterborough Historical Society | Peterborough, NH*
15 October | Spotty Dog | Hudson, NY (solo)*
16 October | Parlor Room | Noho, MA*

*with Sam Moss, Trevor Healy

Photo by Hart and Sol Photography

The post Song Premiere: Wooden Dinosaur – Room of Love appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Moss has posted the first track, ‘Postman’, as a taster and it has certainly whetted my appetite. The track captures the themes of the album overall, which Moss says was created “during a period of rootlessness and floated with me across the time zones of the United States.”

Fable is due for release on the 6th May on Lost Honey Records. You can pre-order it on CD, vinyl or digital download via the Sam Moss Bandcamp page. Alternatively you can pledge help via Indiegogo to get some exciting (and imaginative) extras. Moss also has a growing list of tour dates which you can see at his website.

Photo by Emily Haviland Baker

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