Samanà - All One Breath (2022)

Samanà is the project of Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett, who when trapped in France because of certain evens in 2020 decided to stick it out and write an album. That album is 'All One Breath' and draws on folk and experimental music, as well as playful improvisation to make an album that perfectly reflects the circumstances under which it was recorded.

There is a mystery to Samana and All One Breath. Their sound, created and refined, is more than the sum of the parts. In some respects, the sound is something of an accident. Taking a break from building The Road Records, their studio in Wales, they packed up their old Mercedes van and headed for the Pyrenees in France. The day after their arrival, France went into lockdown and a month-long holiday became an enforced three-month stay.

Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett quickly realized there were no rules, adopting an anything-goes mentality that led them to focus more on sounds than structures. The approach paid dividends, with songs getting caught up in waves of sound heading in one direction while fluidly turning and twisting in unexpected ways. Recording 60 songs during that time, upon their return home, they whittled that number down to the ten that comprise All One Breath.

Using traditional grounding, they travel on pathways far less rooted in the old ways. For a band born in England before moving to Wales, they seem more honed in on the culture of the American West. That dichotomy rests at the heart of their music. Wanders in worlds of the unfamiliar, they imbue their music a similar sense of rootlessness.

No one seems to know melancholy the way Samana does; it rests in every pore. The guitars that open “Melancholy Heat” are like old friends, yet as Harris and Mockett sing, it all becomes clear, “I’ve come to understand, the pain in all I’ve known/ The importance to be rooted down/ The art of letting go.” Like an old blues guitarist, Mockett imbues “The Glory of Love” with a downhome slide work. Yet, the piece takes off in directions that incorporate the blues while not feeling particularly bluesy, which seems to be Samana’s secret gift.

The languid opening to “Patience” has the feel of old Fleetwood Mac, circa “Albatross,” yet thanks to a guitar solo, ends up going down roads that Peter Green and Danny Kirwan never imagined. Yet, at no time does the song feel out of place or forced into directions that stray from the pathways Samana have established.

Harris can sound almost like the ghost of Nico at one point, but in the following line, her tone and texture is miles away, making for an interesting blend of the foreign and familiar.

At the heart of Samana and All One Breath opposite worlds seem to coalesce forming contradictions that are part of the very fabric of life. They travel emotional pathways through a constantly changing landscape, documenting moments that may never come again.