We've been enjoying Brooklyn songwriter and Doveman homie Sam Amidon's forthcoming All Is Well , so we were happy to see the Jeremy Blatter-concocted, found footage-filled video for the lovely "Saro," complete with Nico Muhly's gorgeous, flourishing arrangements. Opening with some hopeful, sadly untrue dialog about the unchanging prairies, the preacher tells us, "Yes ma'am, we need music out here." Here here. Then it's those moody horns, covered wagons, a Beirut-y oceanside, and Sam telling us, "I came to this country in 1849." Enter the cowboys. The dust and sunsetting's [...]

SIDE A 1. Clem Snide - Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Your Grieviences (Daniel Johnston Cover) 2. Samamidon - Head Over Hills (Tears For Fears Cover) 3. The Veils - Drive (R.E.M. Cover) 4. Death Cab For Cutie - World Shut Your Mouth (Julian Cope Cover) 5. Radiohead - Headmaster Ritual (Smiths Cover) 6. Tyler Ramsey - These Days (Jackson Browne Cover) 7. The Swell Season - Into The Mystic [...]

Kristof Kintera - Bad Innovation (2007) 11) Deer Tick – Art Isn't Real (City of Sin) (mp3) 12) The Bird and The Bee - Preparedness (mp3) 13) Low - Breaker (mp3) 14) Amy Winehouse - Love Is A Losing Game (mp3) 15) Beirut - In The Mausoleum (mp3) 16) Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (mp3) 17) MIA - Paper Planes (mp3) 18) Talib Kweli - Listen [...]

New Wax Brought up in Vermont by a family of folk musicians, the multi-talented Sam Amidon spent most of his childhood perfecting his craft as a violinist and listening to traditional Irish music. Upon moving to New York, Amidon began to delve into other music and he started to hone his folk-singing skills. With his new album All Is Well , Amidon improves tremendously on last year's But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted , which in itself was a wonderfully solid folk album. With help from composer [...]

Conducted by Capt. Obvious Obvious: The arrangements and orchestration on your upcoming album All Is Well really impressed me. Who was involved in the recording process and how did you hook up with Icelandic record label Bedroom Community? Samamidon: The orchestral arrangements are by my friend, the composer Nico Muhly - he is also how I got connected to Bedroom Community. He's on the label too, and works very closely in many contexts with [...]

Benjamin Evans - Adorno Concerto (2007) When makes an album "best" of the year? What does it mean to call Radiohead's new album the best ... that it's the most intruiguing electonic-influenced rock album crafted in rural England with an unlimited budget and press coverage? Do the best albums have the best promise, the best musicianship, the best [...]

Image: John Vachon Wild Bill Jones - Sam Amidon About suffering they are never wrong, these old mountain songs. Life -- and death -- is what happens while you're mundanely living it. While you're sleeping, tangled careless in bedclothes; or strolling the aisles of a supermarket with your little brown handbasket, scanning the shelves for anchovies and oatmeal; or dancing at a wedding reception, flatfooted [...]

Sam Amidon - "Little Johnny Brown" . The tide brings in different things. One day: cockleshells, sea-glass, driftwood. Another day it's seaweed and turtleshell. This morning you wake and climb the bluff and there are jellyfish, millions of them, gleaming in the sand like rubies. The tide brings seagulls, planing, and buzzards, loping. It brings stones. It brings strangers in ships, and wide white sails. It brings salt. It leaves the salt on the beach. When you lie on the beach it smells like tears. The tide does not bring her back. Sam Amidon's album with Doveman's Thomas Bartlett, [...]

Sonja Thomsen - Gesture (2006) Sam Amidon is more than just an opportunity to share love about Bedroom Community and its greenhouse gases that may just save the world. He's an opportunity to share handmade antidotes for all your late fall ailments. This track has love for your lonliness, tradition for your nostalgia, and warm violins for your shivers. Mostly, it has resolve for leaving beauty behind. The record " All is Well " comes out highly [...]

Looking for a warm sepulchral voice to heat your winter's nights? Try this little guy: Sam Amidon . His voice is amazing of richness and simplicity. I don't know his secret, maybe he borrowed one of Uncle Oldham's vocal chords. Or maybe it's just a gift. His fifth album, All is Well , is filled with sympathic melancholy. Banjo, piano, trumpet, acoustic guitars, and other instruments brighten his music in a delicate way. MP3: Sam Amidon - Sugar Baby [...]
Samamidon - Fall On My Knees Samamidon - Saro

Image: Davegraphics Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - stick with me baby (raising sand / 2007) Magnet - the gospel song (the simple life / 2007) Samamidon - fall on my knees (all is well / 2007) Mirah - nobody has to stay (C'mon miracle / 2004) Willoughby - [...]

1. The Physics of Meaning - Small Towns and Invisible People - This opens like early-era Deathcab so I'm hooked. "Down at Columbia and Cameron" was one of my favorite songs of 2005, but I hadn't heard this gem til last week. A little Weakerthans-esque as well. [from The Physics of Meaning | buy ] 2. Le Concorde - Parallel Lines - With a name like Le Concorde and a sound straight out of classic 70's pop, I thought they were French. Chicago, IL puts [...]

( photo ) After an October full of great releases, looks like slow going for most of the rest of the year, despite a couple of noteworthy Wu-related exceptions. So let's look forward to 2008, okay? Two people with exquisite taste recommended Samamidon 's " Saro " to me within hours of each other, and, despite the amateurish video , it's a devastatingly sad and affecting song. Poor Sam sounds like his heart's been broken and he's painfully lonely; but, there's a glimmer of hope in his longing. This, of course, makes [...]

Photo: Harvey V W Tomorrow I'll be kidnapping you and we will be playing in the grass all day, taking a 40 minute drive to even get to the grass on which we're going to play. We will take off our clothes and they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine. - Neutral Milk Hotel / Two-headed boy . Clear Tigers - Igloo (Ep / 2007) Samamidon [...]

So you are a fledgling Icelandic label (come on, play along), three wonderful, progressive albums under your furry belt – one from the classical ingenue, one from the abrasive guitar-cruncher, and one from the knob-twiddling producer to the stars. So, what are you going to do next? Isn't it obvious? You haven't done a folk album yet, have you? Get yourself a banjo player and immerse him in the hot spring of talent bursting from your roster. Sam Amidon's All Is Well [...]

This is the best song you'll hear all week. Period. That used to be quite a boast but with the number of blogs and online/offline music possibilities it may not hold the same weight. Nonetheless this little gem from West Dakota's upcoming debut full length, Turn Around Leaders on Swim Slowly )(Doveman, The Robot Ate Me), hits all the right warbly high notes, strums just the right banjo chords, references the perfect number of mythical beasts, and namedrops the coolest philosophical theories ( deterministic vs. free will ). [...]
Sam Amidon, once of laid-back Brattleboro, VT and now of busy Brooklyn, has crafted a gentle, unobtrusive album of country folk.
Samuel Tear is a prolific artist. As well as spending 22 hours a day writing music in a scatter of bands (Doveman, Stars Like Fleas..) he also searches the archives for forgotten songs that he can add his own twist to (he draws comic strips too). 'But This Chicken Proved False Hearted' has just been released under Tear's Samamidon project with friend Thomas Bartlett. The album is a knowing

4 MP3s from bands playing SXSW.... DOWNLOAD: The Besnard Lakes - And You Lied to Me (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Blacklist - Language Of The Living Dead (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Samamidon - Tribulation (MP3) DOWNLOAD: Steaming Wolf Penis - Vampire Moustache (MP3) The music portion of SXSW runs from Tuesday March 13th - Saturday March 18th. Whether you have a [...]