Samuel Claiborne - Love, Lust, and Genocide (2015)

About 8 years ago, I reconnected with an old friend from grade and high school, Tomás Doncker. We'd lost touch for many years, and in those years, while I'd done all sorts of odd experimental 'avant-garde' music, and slammed it out with bands like Things Fall Apart, The Poorboys, and The Wolves at places like CBGBs, Tomás had been playing all over the world in some of the hottest bands, with some of the greatest musicians in the world from Madonna to James Chance to Sean Lennon. He'd become an absolutely formidable guitarist and vocalist, an ace producer, and an incredibly passionate advocate for 'music that matters' - music with real heart, real emotion. Music that has something important to say. And he'd also become a walking, talking encyclopedia of music. It is a rare day indeed when I can talk to Tomás about a musician that he's never heard of.

Cut to four years ago, and Tomás forms True Groove Records, "The Home of Global Soul" - Global Soul is Tomás' phrase for music that encompasses all genres, moves and grooves, and is genuine.

Cut to about two years ago when Tomás asked me to do a record on his label. You could'a knocked me over with a feather. I at first thought he was 'being nice to an old friend', but it quickly became clear to me that True Groove was Tomás' soul, and there was not going to be any dead weight on this label! Everyone he signed was someone he saw something in.

What he saw in me, primarily, was a writer. Sure I could play guitar, viola and piano some, and mumble a few words shyly, but what he saw was a passionate writer. However, what he pulled out of me was a passionate songwriter, a passionate instrumentalist, and a decent (much to my utter surprise) vocalist! Tomás saw so much more in me than I saw in myself. he believed in me more than I believed in myself! And, along the way, he became an amazing songwriting partner and producer (along with myself and James Dellatacoma as co-producers).

The result is Love, Lust, and Genocide, an album I am so very proud of. So grateful to have been a part of.

The title and the cover both suggest that this is an intense, not-easy-to-digest album, and that is so. It's passionate, controversial, noisy, experimental, exuberant, and above all, it means what it says.

It also has some amazing musicians on it, including special guests like Bill Laswell and Craig Hazen on bass, Steve Gorn on Bansuri flute, Senegalese sensation Mamadou Diate on guitar and vocals, Finnish wunderkind Artur Uronen on 8 string lap steel guitar, and many more.