It was New Years Eve 2022, the night before Sam Evian started recording Plunge, his fourth LP, now set for release on Flying Cloud Recordings via Thirty Tigers – his first album on his new imprint. He invited his friends and fellow musicians to his property in the Catskills, where he’d just painstakingly relocated and revamped his Flying Clouds Studios into a new barn on the property, restoring a vintage console and tape deck from 1974. Adrianne Lenker brought a jug of maple syrup from Vermont, Sufjan Stevens set off fireworks in the meadow, and at midnight, the group of friends cold-plunged into a nearby creek as it started snowing.
The next day, the Plunge sessions began, and the album was tracked in the early winter months of 2023 over a 10-day period. Joined by a group of his closest friends and collaborators (including Liam Kazar, Sean Mullins, El Kempner of Palehound and Adrianne Lenker of Big Thief), the young artist / producer set out with a wide-open approach. “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.”
The result is Evian’s best album to date: a cathartic rock record that melds power pop, iridescent guitar, raucous psychedelia, and Sam’s now sought-after grooves. The music is both fresh and familiar, sonically inspired by his penchant for early 70s production and creatively propelled by the free-spirited process depicted in the Beatles documentary Get Back, as well as his urge to let go. “I spend so much time trying to make perfect recordings for everyone else,” Evian remarks, “So it was a slight act of rebellion to make something wild and kind of fucked up for myself.”
