May 12, 2017 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
In the sequel of songs that follow in an agile parade, there are some of the most vibrant harmonic structures, accompanied by more definite dynamics (“Gown” and especially “Otherwise The Pull”), but all of them Characterized by an extraordinary naturalness of writing and interpretation, that of a craftsman of songs able to create small wonders that, while being made up of those same elements, travalicano of momentum every cliché of the songwriter guitar and voice.
Mar 22, 2017 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
Chansons de Parade is for sure a comforting album now as winter means rain and storm and the all fucked-up Trump soon takes the Presidential chair. Joe Sampson for president, I’d say!
Feb 22, 2017 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
Joe Sampson is a label mate of Kramies on Hidden Shoal. He’s a singer-songwriter in the spirit of Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen. In September he released a 5-song EP, Songs of Delay. It featured a track with Nathaniel Rateliff of the Night Sweats fame. Now, there’s a full album. Entitled Chansons de Parade, it hallmarks Sampson’s fragile-sounding style. But it’s not bedsits and microwaves. There’s a playfulness to the lyrics and a lovely chiming quality to the guitar sound that lifts the songs.
Songs of Delay is available as a free download from Sampson’s Bandcamp site. Chansons de Parade is also there and for a name-your-own-price deal. As a taster, here’s Joe Sampson and Nathaniel Rateliff singing ‘Songbird’ from the Songs of Delay EP.
Nov 25, 2016 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
Are twelve minutes sufficient for a songwriter to fully deploy his own personality. Twelve minutes are enough to be enchanted in front of the simple naturalness and delicate understatement of his melodies. The duration is one of the five songs Ep “Songs Of Delay” and the singer in question is called Joe Sampson and comes from Denver, where he was honored as songrwriter of the year in 2008 and later collaborated with musicians such as Nathaniel Rateliff and Esme Patterson.
Nov 25, 2016 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
It is perhaps for the reading of the M train of Patty Smith that I really arrived to savor this man, not to happen to dissociate his sonorous work from a reading that hypnotized me, for this impression to move me to sound Of these ballads, for this alchemy of simple things that the muse used to say, and which the timid little man sang.
Nov 25, 2016 | Joe Sampson Reviews, Reviews
Joe Sampson creates a lot with a little. Maybe it was his family roots of a barbershop quartet that lead to the minimalism of his craft. Maybe it was his collaborations with Nathaniel Rateliff and Esme Patterson, or maybe it’s just because he doesn’t need to add any bells or whistles to his songs. The Denver songwriter, who took home Songwriter of the Year from Westword in 2008 and was hailed as the rarely seen and mythical musical unicorn by Hey Reverb, has just released his stark, EP Songs of Delay — a stunning 13-minute journey straight into the heart of superb songwriting and a simple, austere but elegant presentation of those songs.
