Music: Samantha Crain

The American singer songwriter has just released her fourth album

Born and raised in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and of Choctaw (Native American) heritage, the 28 year-old Crain taught herself to play guitar and started writing songs based on her short stories, culminating in her debut release, The Confiscation EP: A Musical Novella, in 2007. Her third album, You (Understood), was released by the independent UK label Full Time Hobby in 2013, and staying with the same label, she’s just released Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, a superb work that will surely bring her new fans.

With an undertow of acoustic country folk, and powered along by a sturdy rhythm, uncomplicated, rhythm section, the album is also embellished with some gorgeous strings, and occasional use of effects and sounds. Crain’s storytelling style is warm, open and engaging, often about the common man, in the vein of fellow-Oklahoman, Woody Guthrie. “I don’t write protest songs in the traditional sense, but I’m always listening to the voices of people around me,” says Crain. “These stories are told from the perspective of the underdog, the 99% of us that are working people. They might not be literal protest songs, but the lives of the people within these songs speak at the same volume if you listen.”

Recorded in San Francisco with John Vanderslice, the warmth of the record partly emanates from the use of analogue tape: “We recorded straight to two-inch tape on a Studer 24-track machine and mixed down to 1/2-inch tape on an Ampex machine,” says Crain. “The pre-amps were tube and we never used a computer. Our effects were done manually through tape looping and manipulation. Most of the arrangements happened in the moment, as we recorded. My guitar and vocals are all first or second takes.”
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