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Feb 14, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by CJ Harvey

Sam Evian is releasing a new album, Plunge, on March 22 via Evian’s own Flying Cloud Recordings imprint and Thirty Tigers. Now he has shared the album’s second single, “Rollin’ In,” via a music video. CJ Harvey directed the video. Watch it below.

Evian had this to say about the new single in a press release: “The song is a box of memories, and a meditation. I grew up on the Crystal Coast of North Carolina, and often went down to the ocean to commune with myself, a habit I picked up from my mother. It’s a reflection of that time of my life, and who I’ve become in the years since. I started writing about a simple relationship theme, but quickly realized I was examining myself and my own disillusionment with who I thought I would become, versus the person I am today.

“Initially I did not plan on a sax solo, but Wayne Shorter passed away the day I was finishing the mix, so I felt inspired to put it in at the last minute. I did my best to pay tribute to his sensitivity, lyricism and restraint. I wanted it to feel like big rolling waves.”

Evian previously shared the album’s first single, “Wild Days,” which was one of our Songs of the Week.

Evian recorded the album at Flying Cloud Studios in the Catskills in Upstate New York with various friends and collaborators, including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner of Palehound, and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief.

“No-one knew the songs or what the plan was. We kept it loose and fun. This was the spirit of the sessions. No headphones, no playback, minimal overdubs, or bleed. Fast and loose,” says Evian in a press release.

“I wrote the songs so that I could just play them and sing them on a guitar. I wanted them to be like really focused, classic songs,” he further explains.

“Wild Days” was written from Evian’s mother’s perspective and the whole of Plunge sees Evian writing “from the eyes of his creative musician parents, tracing their complicated love story and adding his own ruminations throughout,” as the press release puts it.

Plunge is the follow-up to 2021’s Time to Melt, which was released on Fat Possum.

Read our The End interview with Evian from 2021.

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