Sam Lee – Songdreaming (Cooking Vinyl, 2024)
In March 2024, Sam Lee released his fourth studio album, titled songdreaming. Known as a custodian of folk music from the British Isles, a prominent voice in the environmental advocacy, and the brains behind the highly successful “Singing with Nightingales” project, Lee has established himself as a key figure in preserving and representing the natural world through music. Across four albums, he has embodied the role of chronicler and artistic advocate for nature with ease.
With his powerful, expressive vocals and an enthralling mix of chamber folk and cinematic music, Lee’s dedication to both the indigenous song culture of the British Isles and environmental conservation runs deep, evident in the thematic core of songdreaming. The album highlights his profound affection for the natural world and his unwavering commitment to its protection.
For Lee, his connection to nature transcends mere appreciation; it symbolizes a pathway to a more harmonious existence and a quest to restore an idyllic state akin to Eden. In his view, the reimagined and reworked songs on songdreaming serve not only as a historical record but also as a vibrant and essential link to humanity’s essence.
“The album is about imagining into or retrieving what was once felt before the segregating of us from the land first started, the enclosures, the Norman conquest, the Romans, those successive eras of trauma and subjugation that occurred in this country and then the knock-on to slavery and empire, exporting that brutality, It looks beyond that loss and attempts to reclaim that sense of sovereignty and permissiveness that I feel we need to protect the little natural richness we have left.”
Buy songdreamin.
Author: Ryan Emmert
