In 2018, we reissued a long lost & rarely heard masterpiece of 1980s ambient home-recording, Warren Sampson’s ‘Traveller’. After a more than thirty year gap between albums, we are more than pleased to finally offer Sampson’s sophomore release, ‘The River Today’. A gorgeous forty-minute aural landscape situated on the banks of a river, Sampson’s knack for stately, low-key melodies has not waned in the slightest in the intervening decades since his last release. Solitary, but never alone, delicately paced guitars arrive enveloped by the hissing of insects hidden in the reeds, while an organ gently pulses and softly chiming piano notes accompany a bird’s fleeting visit to the shoreline. An effortlessly leisurely listen and experience that sympathetically notes both the drama and the peace unfolding in the natural world.

“The River Today is a follow-up to Traveller which was originally released in 1987. Traveller has often been described as sounding wintry, possibly because the guitar sound has a lot of treble. That sound was actually the result of a mistake! I had no idea how to properly record an electric guitar, so I just plugged it directly into the tape deck creating an impedance mismatch which skewed the tone. Whatever the reason, Traveller feels crystalline and wintry. I wanted this new record to be warm and summery. The initial inspiration came on a golden summer afternoon spent with my kids and our friends by the St. Croix River.
Traveller explored the idea that music is a river - constantly moving, changing and inspiring different moods each day. The photo on the cover of this new album captures a chosen spot on the river. It isn’t remarkably scenic. A National Geographic photographer would never stop there. But it’s a place you could imagine living, getting to know the shapes of the trees on the opposite bank and the way the sun hits the water through the days and years.
The River Today is a way for me to deal with the infinite choices music presents as you make it. I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to understand music theory and the traditional or ideal ways in which melody and chords should progress. I’ve decided that, while there are many more “right” notes than there are “wrong” notes for any moment, it is a waste of time to look for the “perfect” note. If the note that comes out is more right than wrong, then it is the unique note which floated by my spot on the river today.”--Warren Sampson, 2020