Sam wilkes - DRIVING (2023)

Driving is Sam Wilkes’ Indie Rock record. Out October 6th, 2023, it is the first release on Wilkes Records, an imprint borne of the artist’s emergent need to self-release. The songs presented here exist comfortably within the ever-expanding Wilkesian cosmos, characterized as they are by virtuosity, torqued experimentalism, and collaboration with a range of talented musicians. But Driving’s influences, its sincerity, and its allegiance to a certain pop sensibility reflects a departure for an artist who has primarily staked his claim within the experimental jazz idiom.

Take the first track, “Folk Home,” which inaugurates the album’s fecundity—a bright, green, humid, summer feel. A swirling, freakout coda of reversed vocals gives way, in no short order, to a caterwaul of flute work that conjures Van Morrison’s (in)famous Astral Weeks sessions. Standing beside Morrison, the usual suspects are all present, if somewhat abstractedly. Dylan, The Dead, Joni, the Fab Four. Wilkes has developed a reputation as an experimental jazz luminary, but his deep affinity for the pop/rock/folk idiom of the latter twentieth century rings clear throughout Driving. More so than any Wilkes release to date, Driving is a collection guided by and dedicated to the man’s attention to songcraft.

Tracklist:
1.01 - Sam wilkes - Folk Home (4:46)
1.02 - Sam wilkes - Ag (3:47)
1.03 - Sam wilkes - Hannah Song (3:00)
1.04 - Sam wilkes - Own (3:55)
1.05 - Sam wilkes - Knows (4:13)
1.06 - Sam wilkes - Conga (3:11)
1.07 - Sam wilkes - Again, Again (4:19)
1.08 - Sam wilkes - And Again (6:55)
1.09 - Sam wilkes - Driving (5:19)