Sam Walton
Verified
Native Londoner, music writer, photographer, one quarter of @thisisdogunit. Enjoys: live music, Dennis Bergkamp, disco(s), the movies, art, cats, puns.
Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Sam Walton
The Art of Space How Architecture And Interior Design Shape The Way We Live And Work
When you walk into a space-be it your home, an office, or a cafe-there's more happening than meets the eye. Every wall, light fixture, texture, and layout decision has been purposefully considered by someone trained not only to build, but to create a feeling. That someone is an architect or an interior designer. Together, these professionals don't just design structures; they shape experiences. Architecture and interior design go hand in hand.
The Smile - Cutouts - Loud And Quiet
Towards the end of the podcast series Dissect, which conducted a forensic song-by-song investigation of Radiohead’s In Rainbows across ten episodes, there’s a well-sourced aside about the reason the band’s albums have been so few and far between in the last 20 years: essentially, Thom Yorke can’t bring himself to greenlight a Radiohead release until he’s completely content with it all, and that’s a process that – understandably for the man who most embodies the band – takes time.
"No other festival does anything even approaching this" – a weekend at Helsinki's Flow 2024 - Loud And Quiet
In our sort of late-period cash-strapped AI-addled age of music journalism, a standard form of festival recap article has emerged – a sort of pseudo-listicle ticking off the major acts with a one-phrase descriptor of each, inevitably kicking you over the requisite word count in no time thanks very much and let’s get this one bashed out before lunch yeah?
Flow festival in 3s: how to get the most out of the final festival in its current spectacular home
Helsinki’s Flow festival is nearly upon us: the weekend after next (9 – 11 Aug), over 150 acts will descend on the Finnish capital’s Suvilahti former power plant, full of mammoth brick halls and beautiful old gasometers, for the festival’s 20th anniversary and its last edition on the site before the power plant’s buildings are renovated.
Cassandra Jenkins – My Light, My Destroyer - Loud And Quiet
Cassandra Jenkins’ last album, 2021’s majestic dream-folk sleeper-hit An Overview on Phenomenal Nature, was supposed to be just that: her last. During its recording, the Manhattan singer–songwriter decided that ten years of releasing music to a largely indifferent public was a perfectly acceptable effort, and so, as the record trickled out during a dark and freezing February lockdown, she prepared to call it quits.
Beth Gibbons - Lives Outgrown - Loud And Quiet
A handful of adjectives seem to follow Beth Gibbons around. “Tortured”, “bleak” – they crop up again and again in descriptions of the singer, the combined effect being the construction of a sort of proxy personality to drape over that remarkable voice.
Claire Rousay - sentiment - Loud And Quiet
Since Claire Rousay distanced herself from her Christian upbringing, where she played drums in an evangelical rock band, she’s evaded easy categorisation in the music she’s produced, and in how that music has been presented. I can’t tell you what number album sentiment is, because I can’t confidently gauge which of Rousay’s releases she considers to be albums. 2022’s everything perfect is already here did appear in our Album of the Year list, but it is a record made up of just 2 tracks.
Mount Kimbie - The Sunset Violent - Loud And Quiet
Here’s a thought experiment: if Mount Kimbie’s history wasn’t already known, and you had to imagine one that explains the contents of The Sunset Violent, what would it look like? A musically literate post-punk group going up through the gears of songwriting complexity over a series of albums, perhaps? Maybe a familiar story of a conventional rock band embracing the digital fringes of their genre a little more with each release? Both sound convincing, and would match the record’s sound.
Chanel Beads: “I feel like I was asleep my whole life, then I woke up at 26”
Shane Lavers wants to get up close. He likes small, dark venues; events that feel more like parties than concerts. “Ideally, we’re not onstage, we’re level with people,” the Chanel Beads frontman says. “The intimacy becomes like a release.” That release comes as his voice rises, singing louder and louder as he prowls the floor right in front of your face. “I’m addicted to screaming at people now,” he says with a laugh.
Kali Malone - All Life Long - Loud And Quiet
To date, Kali Malone’s albums have felt more like commemorations of live events than free-standing musical objects. All Life Long, however, has a greater sense of its own agency than hitherto: the 12 pieces here, written for choir, brass ensemble or pipe organ, feature recurring patterns that echo off each other as the album progresses, and a single-sitting listening is rewarded with a sense of monolithic completion, and a consequently satisfying calm.
Lee “Scratch” Perry - King Perry - Loud And Quiet
Lee “Scratch” Perry finished recording King Perry only days before his death in 2021, leaving the remaining production duties to engineer Daniel Boyle, with whom Perry had worked for the past decade.
Sprints: “We decided not to take the easy route, and to just go into the heavy stuff”
“Let’s take things up a notch,” roared Karla Chubb, lead vocalist and guitarist of Irish punk band Sprints to a sold-out London Scala last month. The band had been on stage for about 45 minutes, and their fans, by this point beaming and sweaty, had not stopped moving for most of that time. As Sprints launched into new single ‘Up and Comer’ the place erupted with bouncy, chaotic energy, buzzing with joyful catharsis.
Montañera - A Flor de Piel - Loud And Quiet
A spirit of dislocation runs through the third album by Montañera – real name María Mónica Gutiérrez – where disparate musical cultures and styles rub up against one another, and where the interest lies in how they tessellate. Perhaps that’s appropriate: after all, A Flor De Piel is reportedly a response to the Bogotá -bred singer’s relocation to London, and all the homesickness, culture shock, and difficulty in starting again in a new city that that entails.
John Francis Flynn – Look Over The Wall, See The Sky - Loud And Quiet
Depending on your folk knowledge, you’ll know anything between one and all the songs on John Francis Flynn’s second album.
Still brutal, and surprisingly funky – last night IDLES announced new album TANGK via a secret show in London - Loud And Quiet
It feels strange to stand in line outside a venue in Shoreditch on a Tuesday night. It’s a bit old-school, to be honest. These days, this is where you’re more likely to run into a banker than a hipster, and the £7.20 pints and charcuterie boards are a far cry from the days of blokes with Nathan Barley haircuts and people in the know (who work at VICE). But there’s a strange twang of nostalgia in being at a ‘secret’ gig in E1. It’s like we’re back where we started.
The March Afternoons
The March Afternoons’ first mini-album, Good Luck from Barnard Castle, examined sole member Mark Estall’s childhood home through a lens glazed with family quarrels and dimly remembered football TV commentary, so perhaps it’s a natural progression that its follow-up here deals with Estall’s adulthood home of London in much the same manner, swapping pre-teen angst and rueful reverie for their grown-up equivalents.
Wilco and Cate Le Bon on working together: "There was no way Cate's dad would let her say no!"
In rock’s recent past, the producer as provocateur-confronter has cast a long shadow. BJ Burton tore up Low’s playbook magnificently for their final two albums; before that, Richard Russell carved a niche re-tricking old dogs in the form of Gil Scott Heron and Bobby Womack.
Walmart perks
Here’s a counter point for Sunnyvale. The office is cramped as fk. You are packed like sardines. San Bruno is far better. Charging - literally every other employee has a fking Tesla. And they will try to run over unsuspecting employees on their way to win the charger sweepstakes. There’s like 16 working ports. And from time to time 4 of them are out of commission. You will need to show up by 745 am to get a charge. Otherwise prepare to threaten other employees if they sit on their asses and don’t unplug.
Deeper - Careful! - Album Review
By this stage in post-punk’s history – one, lest we forget, whose origin is now closer to the outbreak of the Second World War than the present day – there’s a feeling that such a well-codified genre has few surprises left to spring.
"Hi, we're Oasis" - Wet Leg were a joyous surprise at their secret End Of The Road set last night - Loud And Quiet
You can’t keep anything a secret these days – not least, it would seem, the Saturday sunset slot on the main stage at End Of The Road this year, which has been billed as “???” all weekend but which by Saturday morning even hitherto uncontacted tribes in northern Brazil know is going to be Wet Leg.
Mary In The Junkyard might be the quintessential End Of The Road band
You could feasibly spend End Of The Road’s entire three-and-a-half days inside The Folly.
Future Islands at End Of The Road: a massive emotional puke (in the best possible way)
It’s now been nine years since Future Islands’ overnight transition from cult curio to global meme-bait following their astonishing performance of ‘Seasons (Waiting On You)’ on Letterman, which is also the same amount of time they were a band before that late-night TV quantum leap in 2014.
Mary In The Junkyard: "It's very chaotic, but it kind of works"
Clari Freeman Taylor is tired. It’s at least 25 degrees in London, we’re in the tourist hotspot that is Cutty Sark during peak school trip time and she’s running on very little sleep – but for good reason. “I was trying to finish this dress,” she says, gesturing downwards to show off her teal crochet garment.
Claire Rousay at Flow: a magical performance featuring a new direction for the sound collagist
Words by Stuart Stubbs Photos by Sam Walton It took going to Flow to realise how deceptive its lineup is. As a Brit, at least, you see Blur and Devo and Christine & The Queens and Caroline Polachek on the bill and it’s quite enough to get you out to Helsinki.
Horace Andy at Flow festival: queues around the balloon for the dub reggae legend
Horace Andy, the only voice to appear on all of Massive Attack's albums, fills out Flow's greatest stage 3 times over
Devo at Flow: “Greetings, Nordic Spuds!"
Words by Sam Walton Photos by Sam Walton A million things happen during Devo’s gig tonight that just don’t happen at other Flow festival gigs.
Brìghde Chaimbeul at Flow festival: why sitting in a dark room with the bagpipe soloist was the right decision
There were some spiteful clashes on the opening night of Helsinki’s Flow last night, but at least we’d been given time to explore the festival’s abandoned power plant site before being forced into difficult decisions. The site of Suvilahti really is as hulking and impressive as I was hoping it would be, all chimney stacks and skeletal gas cylinder rigs and colossal brick buildings, down by the sea.
Nala Sinephro at Flow festival: ambient spiritual jazz in a suitably dreamy setting
Words by Sam Walton Photos by Sam Walton Within 20 minutes of arriving at the first day of Helsinki’s Flow festival, I’ve seen some rapturously received Finnish afrobeats, an experimental violist playing gorgeous loops and drones in a dimly lit hall, spine-jacking techno (a bit much, at 5pm on day one, for all but three devotees), and a doomy art installation in a grand ex-turbine hall telling us exactly when we’re all going to die.
Pulp at Finsbury Park: still the biggest band who can pull off a set list featuring so many obscurities
The only comparison I have to a gig in north London’s Finsbury Park was when I saw Oasis here in 2002, pushing Heathen Chemistry – a record I think even Noel Gallagher has forgotten. Liam wore an overly complicated parka that day, which instantly became a coveted item. It rained heavily and there was an extraordinary amount of piss in the air, even for an Oasis gig. A friend of a friend went home with only one shoe – a Clark’s Wallabee, of course. I loved every horrible second of it.
Lorelle Meets The Obsolete
The sixth Lorelle Meets The Obsolete record represents something of a genre shift for the Mexican duo, with their previous albums’ extended psych jams making way for a lean, grinding and often confrontational form of industrial post-punk that makes few concessions to listener comfort: the album slams awake to the sound of apocalyptic crumbling, all sweeping buzzes, powering-down synths, and dead-behind-the-eyes stomp, and even when the component parts coalesce, a thick, astringent treacle...
Various Artists - Red Hot & Ra: Nuclear War - Loud And Quiet
Sun Ra’s ‘Nuclear War’ might be the Jupiter-born free-jazz maniac’s most malleable tune. Starting life in 1984 as the opening track on his album of the same name, there brimming with fucked-up be-bop modal slink, it was then reimagined four times over a single 40-minute EP by Yo La Tengo at the turn of the millennium, re-emerging as everything from one-chord krautrock mantra to loose-limbed electronica deconstruction.
Laurie Anderson at Primavera Sound: part free-improv performance art, part TED talk
It's exactly what we need going into the final day of the festival, even when the avant-garde legend decides to sing 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star' By midway through the final night of Primavera, most punters’ brains are pretty fried. With the previous three days’ diet of hyperpop, Aperol, blast beats and eye glitter congealing into a gelatinous festival fatberg somewhere in the prefrontal cortex, what’s urgently required is an aural cleanse and a nice sit down before commencing the home straight.
Nia Archives live at Primavera Sound 2023
My notes from this Nia Archives set include snippets of red-hot insight like “SCREENSAVER”, “how good do the snares sound”, “she seems like a laugh” and “macarena!!!!!!”. Hopefully that gives you an idea of what it’s like. I probably don’t need to write any more. Joking aside though [lampard_meme.jpg], Nia Archives’ set at Primavera Sound 2023 is a perfect justification of all the excitement that surrounds the West Yorkshire producer at the moment.
Depeche Mode live at Primavera Sound
It’s the kind of night that makes the night before feel inconsequential. The crowd that’s gathered for Depeche Mode, stretching legions across Primavera’s main two stages, is enough to make Thursday night headliners Blur look like a comparatively up-and-coming band.
Soul Glo live at Primavera Sound
"There's no freedom in the United States" – Pierce Jordan Words by Dominic Haley Photos by Sam Walton “Can I see a show of hands; who’s heard of us?” says Soul Glo frontman, Pierce Jordan, interrupting their set to scan the crowd, shielding his eyes from the blazing Barcelona sun. As a few hands timidly rise, he nods with a mix of curiosity and satisfaction. “That’s interesting… That’s interesting…” The past year or so has been a whirlwind for Soul Glo.
Kendrick Lamar live at Primavera Sound: alone and as freakishly singular as ever
He doesn’t in the end. A maximum for 5 male dancers in dark denim aprons come a go from a predictably raucous ‘Backseat Freestyle’ (although they’re never on stage long), and cousin Baby Keem comes out on the penultimate two tracks – Keem’s own ‘Vent’ and ‘Family Ties’, the latter receiving almost as big a reception as ‘HUMBLE’, the shows crowning, hard three minutes.
The Moldy Peaches live at Primavera Sound 2023
One of the most moving sets of the weekend, delivered by a woman dressed as Toad from Mario Kart Words by Sam Walton Photos by Sam Walton When the Moldy Peaches emerged at the turn of the millennium from the anti-folk movement centred around New York’s Sidewalk Cafe, you’d have got long odds on them being the act from that scene that ended up on the reunion-rock Big Festival circuit 20 years later.
Blur live at Primavera Sound – what happened at track 11 will shock you - Loud And Quiet
Imagine enjoying Country House, because it happened, as the band play their first big show since 2015 Words by Stuart Stubbs Photos by Sam Walton I was sure I’d become an ex-Blur fan. Too many Gorillaz albums released; too many times seeing Damon Alban beat his chest at Gorillaz festival sets, standing on the barrier like a dad who’s just got into grime. What even is Blur anymore? Not Gorillaz, perhaps, but also kind of Gorillaz.
Bar Italia - Tracey Denim - Album Review
Officially, this is the third Bar Italia album. However, given that their first two slipped out unceremoniously on Dean Blunt’s World Music label and, combined, wouldn’t even fill one side of a cassette, there’s a good case to be made for Tracey Denim being their de facto debut. It’s not just circumstances, either: Tracey Denim feels like a debut, too, brimming with the sort of boldly odd artistic poses that only a debut band can strike alongside a charmingly wide-eyed naivete.
Alfa Mist - Variables - Album Review
Naming the wordless opening track on your album ‘Foreword’ demonstrates a certain musical intent. For Alfa Mist, though, his ‘Foreword’ at the start of Variables is simultaneously instructive and misleading: on the one hand, it introduces one of the main stylistic through-lines of the album, namely sleekly bubbling and expressive instrumental jazz, full of motion and energy, which returns sporadically throughout.
James Holden: "Music is an activity, not a product
From teenage raves in rural Leicestershire to a new kind of "dancing music" without the need for a donk Words by Sam Walton Photos by Henri Kisielewski “When I was a teenager, I was fully convinced I was going to buy an old army truck and just be a new-age traveller,” reminisces electronic producer-composer (and 43-year-old static homeowner) James Holden.
Exploring the cosmic connection between Chicago jazz label International Anthem and London's Total Refreshment Centre
Just after 11 PM on the first Saturday of the EFG London Jazz Festival, capping off the Chicago x London evening of experimental improvised music, 17 musicians shuffle onto the stage at the Barbican Centre. They begin playing together in loose unison, grooving in and out of a riff on saxophones and sousaphones, trumpets and drum kits, clarinets, guitars and pianos.
Agar Agar - Player Non Player - Album Review
Agar Agar are a Parisian boy-girl synthpop duo who formed at art school, and although it’s perhaps harsh to suggest that that’s all you need to know, there’s simultaneously a feeling that if you asked an AI to imagine an album by a Parisian boy-girl synthpop duo who formed at art school, it would produce something not unlike Player Non Player.
Richard Dawson on making one of 2022's best albums
A chat with the bard of Newcastle about The Ruby Cord Words by Luke Cartledge Photos by Sam Walton Over the past decade, Newcastle songwriter Richard Dawson has quietly put together an astonishing body of work, his blend of folk, metal, art-rock and experimental music a sound all of his own. In doing so he’s become one of UK independent music’s most beloved artists almost without anyone noticing how much his audience has grown.
Mansur Brown - NAQI - Loud And Quiet
Mansur Brown is another of your south London jazzer types, this time a conservatoire-trained guitarist with a clear predilection for flamenco flourishes and early-’00s hip-hop beats.
Plaid - Feorm Falorx - Album Review
A lot of fairly ripe nonsense accompanies the release of Feorm Falorx, about how the 11th Plaid record is the recreation of a live set that the electronica veterans performed at the Feorm Festival, apparently “an intergalactic shindig held on the planet Falorx”.
James Yorkston: "If one is in a position where one can do art for a living then it’d be foolish to look elsewhere"
The songwriter and author takes us deep into his craft as he releases his latest work, The Book of the Gaels Words by Tristan Gatward Photos by Sam Walton “My only preference is that I keep my hat on,” mumbles a tired James Yorkston, whose nine-hour journey from East Fife to the North Dorset border ends just as you’re sure he’d want it to: with a photoshoot.
Remembering Mimi Parker: “Who wouldn’t want to be creative with the person they love, 24/7?”
When a famous musician dies, the complicated matrix of sadnesses that accompanies it often revolves around the loss of a much-loved personality and the ending of a creative life that’s brought people together in admiration and kinship.
Dry Cleaning: "I’ve always enjoyed listening to people talk"
Having become a big band by accident, Dry Cleaning are set to release Stumpwork, a second album that expands their unique sound into thrilling new territory. In Southend-on-Sea, they explain how they’re never more authentically themselves than when making their strange, incisive music from all of our internal monologues Words by Sam Walton Photos by Matilda Hill-Jenkins In the restaurant of the Royal Hotel Southend, Florence Shaw is trying to order lunch.
Show More
loading
Actions
Get in touch with Sam
Contact Sam, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack