Unapologetically honest – this is what first came to my mind listening to Samantha Josephine. The New Zealand artist self-produces music that is marked by spontaneity, revealing child-like qualities that a lot of artists in this age are yearning for. A pure, uncensored expression of the subconscious, Samantha Josephine’s songs are the soundtrack to waking up early, inhaling the odour of a freshly-brewed coffee and realising that you need to change your life.
However, her lyrics are anything but clear. Her song ‘Morning Light Comes’ starts out with a mysterious sequence of words that seem to be loosely connected to its main theme, and still, she manages to drag us into her meditative thought process in the form of associative writing. Without much hesitation, she starts to vocally perform her flow of consciousness, and stops exactly when everything is said. No song is too long, no melody exuberant. That’s why not a single track on her debut album ‘Feeling in the Strange’ feels dispensable, but rather like a careful selection of heartfelt compositions.
I don't know when it happened exactly, but I realized the writing wasn't up to me. At least in a conscious way.
- Samantha Josephine
‘I Had a Best Friend,’ one of my favourite songs, replicates the aura of a lost Velvet Underground recording, and so she tends to draw inspiration from the poetic chaos of the sixties; always intrigued, but reserved; being a spectator, carefully listening, taking note of every little movement. While in ‘Feeling in the Strange’ she seems to fight against her own voice, ‘For So Long’ brings us familiar rock’n’roll and could be a stripped-down version of an early Lou Reed track.
Stating that she records all of her works in the moment “when the song comes out,” the inner works of Samantha Josephine’s craft seem to remain almost as mysterious to the listener as they are for her; and so even more edgy songs like ‘Fly Bird Fly,’ from her EP of the same name, allow us to take a look into her colourful imagination, where meaning is discovered rather than intentionally created.
It seemed like for me the magic happened when I wasn't paying attention.
- Samantha Josephine
Especially works like the confusingly titled ‘I Had Been Her Skin’ reveal an intimacy that is hard to replicate in a different setting other than Samantha Josephine’s own four walls, in the exact moment of the recording. Her fluctuating rhythm patterns and small slip-ups are cultivating an unpolished authenticity that she is carrying throughout and can be heard as well in her latest album ‘The Finished Touch,’ where she added drums to her collection of mystic narratives, taking the already existing songs to a more upbeat level.
Watching her incredible ‘Behind the Scenes’ video series about her first album, we get the impression that she is creating her own world – centred around her music-making, but also allowing us to visually enter her living room, making us envision her writing process, her way of thinking.
Her little world holds so much potential for us to get carried away – nothing is definite, but everything is fantastically unique.
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