Sam Amidon’s self-titled album is out digitally and on CD today on Nonesuch Records. You can buy it and listen here, where you can also pre-order the vinyl, due January 22. Nonesuch Store orders of the CD and vinyl include a limited-edition signed print while supplies last. A live performance video of the album track "Cuckoo," recorded in concert at Kings Place in London earlier this month, can be seen below.

“A fine showcase for Amidon’s studio experimentation," says Rolling Stone, the album "incorporates elements of spacious, echoing ambient electronic music to complement Amidon’s warm vocals, reminiscent of Nick Drake and Arthur Russell."

“Sometimes artists like Sam Amidon tend to slip through the cracks in the frenzy of the world," says No Depression. "But this LP, full of delicate noise and artful sophistication, deserves a pause in a harried time."

The new album, which Amidon considers the fullest realization to date of his artistic vision, comprises his radical reworkings of nine mostly traditional folk songs, performed with his band of longtime friends and collaborators. Amidon produced the record, applying the sonic universe of his 2017 The Following Mountain to these beloved tunes, many of which he first learned as a child. "Pretty Polly," for example, was one of the first traditional tunes he learned to play, and "Time Has Made a Change" is a song that his parents—singers who were on the 1977 Nonesuch recording Rivers of Delight with the Word of Mouth Chorus—sang around the house when he was young.

Amidon and his frequent band of multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily and drummer Chris Vatalaro were joined in the studio by Belgian guitarist Bert Cools (who played on his last EP), as well as Amidon’s wife, Beth Orton, who adds vocals on three songs. Acoustic bassist Ruth Goller and saxophonist and labelmate Sam Gendel also play on the album, which was mixed by Leo Abrahams. Sam Amidon was mostly recorded live in the studio. Amidon arranged the songs, which are traditional tunes, with the exception of Taj Mahal’s “Light Rain Blues,” Harkins Frye’s “Time Has Made a Change,” and “Hallelujah,” which is an 1835 William Walker shape-note tune using earlier words by Charles Wesley, found in the Sacred Harp collection of early American folk-hymns.

Sam Amidon is Amidon’s fifth recording on Nonesuch and follows the 2019 EP Fatal Flower Garden (A Tribute to Harry Smith). Additional recordings include his 2017 album The Following Mountain and Kronos Quartet’s Folk Songs the same year, on which he was a featured singer along with Rhiannon Giddens, Natalie Merchant, and Olivia Chaney; Lily-O in 2014; and his label debut, Bright Sunny South, in 2013.