Sam Amidon

Sam Amidon, the radical recombinator of traditional folk music, has concocted a delightfully diabolical set of experiments, unleashing a Frankenstein’s monster among the villagers. Something of an extension of his 2019 EP Fatal Flower Garden, Amidon’s self-titled album borrows liberally from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music for both foundational material and alchemical inspiration. Drawing from a sonic palette replete with spooky reverb, jazzy tempos and funky percussion, recalling 2017’s The Following Mountain, Amidon transforms familiar Appalachian songs, murder ballads and novelty tunes, such as ‘Maggie’, ‘Spanish Merchant’s Daughter’, ‘Pretty Polly’ and ‘Cuckoo’ into new weird ditties imbued with their own compelling power, characters and charm.

Playing Igor to the Vermont-born, London-based mad scientist’s role in the West Hampstead laboratory at HOXA Studios were frequent collaborators including multiinstrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro, augmented by Belgian guitarist Bert Cools, bassist Ruth Goller, saxophonist Sam Gendel, and Amidon’s wife, Beth Orton, lending harmonising vocals to three tracks. In addition to transmogrified traditional fare, Amidon includes imaginative arrangements of Taj Mahal’s ‘Light Rain Blues’, Harkin Frye’s ‘Time has Made a Change’, and ‘Hallelujah’, a shape-note song dating from 1835 published in the sacred harp collection of early American folk-hymns.