Will Samson’s Single “Flowerbed” is the Pastoral Sound of the Ego Releasing its Grip on Grief

WillSamson1_crop — Will Samson, “Ochre Alps” cover, image courtesy the artist

The pastoral quality of Will Samson’s “Flowerbed” sounds like the echo of a memory of a dream of a place where the pains and concerns of life are lifted along with the normal limitations of your cognitive framework and intellect. Where broad vistas and gentle breezes and hazy mornings and evenings are the norm. It is there that the painful and frustrating mysteries of your life open up and unravel in your mind. Not as answers given to you but because your mind is able to comprehend for itself those things we can’t accept or otherwise reconcile in our minds and hearts with the world we want. Its effervescent middle section is like the sound of the ego dissolving of its own accord and coming to terms with those knots in our psyche that we can never seem to work through and even if the resolution brings pain we come to accept the pain of loss in a way that doesn’t feel stuck. The song, and the album Paralanguage (due out December 6 on Wichita/PIAS) was written to reflect a time in Samson’s life when, in the wake of the sudden death of his father and his own subsequent PTSD as a result thereof, he decided after some consideration and research to experiment with psilocybin as a form of treating his condition. One day he and his girlfriend went to the countryside and the music is his attempt to express his experience of that time. Impossible to say what the long term results have been but if “Flowerbed” is any indication, Samson found a place of peace in his mind after years of his own psychological hell. Watch the music video for “Flowerbed” on YouTube and follow Samson at the links provided.