“Ochre Alps” (Will Samson song) – Queen City Sounds and Art

WillSamson1_sm — Will Samson, photo courtesy the artist

Will Samson’s album Paralanguage, due out December 6 through Wichita/PIAS, was inspired by his first and only experiment with microdosing psilocybin in the wake of his father’s death in 2012. The songwriter fell into a long spell of despair and psychic unmoorment and having learned about the controversial use of psilocybin as a treatment for persistent psychological trauma he underwent a program of taking in the substance under controlled conditions. The lead single from the album “Ochre Alps” features nearly falsetto vocals and strings that are at once doleful and soothing as if releasing pain through the musical equivalent of sublimation. It sounds like motes of early morning sunlight and waking feeling lighter than you did the night before. Musically it sits at the intersections of folk, modern classical and indie pop. The accompanying music video features two blindfolded figures that are figuring out how to interact with their environment with a new set of parameters with which to do so. It is symbolic, perhaps, of Samson’s own experience with his wife in learning to reconnect with the world on different terms with some of the anguish of his loss evaporated in the light of a new kind of mental clarity. Listen to “Ochre Alps” on Soundcloud, watch the poetic video on YouTube and follow Will Samson at the links provided.