Friday 8th November | 7pm | £15 advance tickets
Samana is a pioneering duo, that integrate the creation of music, poetry, film and photography into one unique project.
“The spiritual grounding between Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett drives this strident blend of slowcorre, blues and yacht rock, with melodic surprises and ghostly vocal. Morricone meets Cowboy Junkies on ‘Into The Blue’, while ‘The Knife’ feels like a lost goth classic”
MOJO Magazine
★★★★
“Musically, the duo cleave to a gothic-leaning, string-infused spectacle blurring the boundaries between Dead Can Dance, Mazzy Star, Nico and sigur rós at the point of their international breakthrough. Then, add in dashes of freak-folk, John Martyn, the intensity of Judee Sill’s “The Donor” and Led Zeppelin’s folk-inclined explorations c. Led Zeppelin III.The nine tracks of Samana beckon you into their world in the same way tendrils of fog surround, and then lead astray, an unsuspecting traveller. Samana sound as entranced as the cast Werner Herzog hypnotised while directing Heart of Glass”
The Arts Desk
★★★★
Expressive, mysteries and creative, this self-titled album defies categorisation. Startingly beautiful, these songs have a driven intensity. SAMANA It has a vivid impact thats impossible to ignore. Bold and innovative, it’s a fine album!
Record Collector
★★★★
Samana was realised in the heart of a mountainous forest, during a year-long journey Rebecca Rose and Franklin Mockett undertook across the natural wilderness and distant cities of Eastern Europe. Lending their instincts solely to the road, and to the embodiment of freedom, their first creations were written in the vast isolation of nature and performed on the streets of the towns and villages they passed through. Crafting every element of creation themselves, the process the pair adopt in the creation of their work is one of strong ritualistic devotion and is produced in their analogue recording studio ‘The Road Records’ and darkroom in the remote regions of Wales.
The music confronts the heaviest elements of the human condition, alternately surrendering to this heaviness and transcending it. It is an invitation to regain possession of ourselves and our time, as well as rediscovering harmony with the environment that surrounds us, compelling a desire to overcome our borders and to learn. Oscillating between melancholic ballads and spiritual experiences, their music leads one on a journey of cinematic proportion that evokes ancient beliefs, revolution, healing, fallen civilisations and intense deliberations of love, loss and death. They possess a truly unique spirit born from a nomadic and solitary existence, placing great emphasis on the philosophy of dreams, the interior of the subconscious and the power of improvisation. Each song created by Samana is constructed with an ethereal power and an emotional honesty which offers a direct passage into the essence of ourselves, removing one's veneer, with its shamanic quality. This is music for the soul.