“We are just lost souls out on the network now,” says Sam Barron. “Who knows where we are going to end up as individuals or as a culture. A Prayer for a Field Mouse for me is about getting out of society’s dread suck, and into the joys of simply surviving.”
Sam’s new album, A Prayer for a Field Mouse (due out September 10th on Mother West), finds him reunited with producer Charles Newman (The Magnetic Fields, The Bones of J.R. Jones, Soko.) Newman’s touches are all over the album, yet the production feels sparse and true to a folk record. Enlisted were bassist Byron Issacs (The Lumineers, Lost Leaders), Eva Mikhailnova (Eva & The Vagabond Tales) on vocals and accordion, and Jack McLoughlin on pedal steel all contributing from their home studios.
“When we started recording the album, I had fallen back in love with my nylon string guitar. I wanted to make an album that featured its sound prominently. So I got intimate with it; recording all my parts in the boiler room of my apartment building during the early days of the Pandemic.”
The songs on A Prayer for a Field Mouse all tell stories of characters with unlikely odds of success. Like the itinerant man in San Pedro who has a bike with no breaks, rides it real slow, follows the moon and sticks to the side of the road. Or the heart broken person smoking crack in Tallahassee: “My mama won’t leave it alone. She’s living in a world that’s dead and gone. Well she never did understand me. So fire up that crack, this is my last track, I’m not coming back from Tallahassee.”
Sam Barron was born in NYC. His father was a former folk musician and forensic criminal investigator, his mother worked with severely handicapped children. Stories from the autopsy table and the macabre reality of God’s misfits left a significant imprint on his developing mind. As Sam needed an intellectual escape from the dark realities of his home, he started penning poems and frequenting uptown jazz clubs, and studying guitar with NYC jazz great and mentor Freddie Bryant.
Today Glide is excited to offer an exclusive premiere of the video for Barron’s tune “Taconic,” which he describes as “a meditation on the most beautiful and treacherous road in the State of New York.” Shot and edited by Nick Keene, the video finds Barron cruising up the windy highway as he offers his own darkly humorous perception of the infamous route. Barron channels a unique style of folk, roots rock and power pop with lyrics that are both melancholy and chuckle-inducing. Within the clever lyrics, Barron also provides some commentary on where we are as a society at this particular weird point in time, all while cruising along and strumming his guitar.
WATCH:
A Prayer For A Field Mouse will be released via Mother West Records on September 10th. PRE-ORDER
