Singer and songwriter Samantha Whates has announced the details of her new single Trees & Gold / Icicle which is scheduled for release on Melodica Recordings on 13th April. The songs were recorded in collaboration with James McArthur & the Head Gardeners and the limited edition 10″ single can be pre-ordered from Samantha’s Bandcamp page.
Trees & Gold features the smooth-as-silk, almost ethereal vocals that are her trademark over a delicate fingerstyle guitar motif, through which the fiddle of Jim Willis and pedal steel guitar of Johnny O weave and flicker like the evening sun through the leaves of the greenwood.
Icicle is an introspective reverie which shifts up a gear at the bridge with the introduction of The Head Gardeners; Johnny O’s pedal steel guitar is to the fore but it’s Samantha’s impeccable, multitracked harmonies that really grab your attention.
Samantha worked with Will Powers and Joseph Eckworth to produce the accompanying video for Trees & Gold. Initially inspired by the shadow puppet animation of Lotte Reiniger it creates its own atmosphere, part narrative and part Grimms’ fairytale, illustrating perfectly Samantha’s lyric.
Review by: Helen Gregory
