This is the second album from Will Samson, presenting a fragile blend of experimental folk and ambient electronics. However, with songs about a surreal overnight boat journey in South East Asia, paintings from a Dutch art gallery, to the simple love of a dear friend, Balance takes a confident step away from its predecessor in both feeling and sound. The record began its life in Summer 2011, while Samson was living in a tiny bedroom in a shared apartment with five other people -- one of whom was Joel Danell, a wonderful musician from Sweden making music under the pseudonym of Musette. When Joel moved back to Stockholm towards the end of the summer, he kindly left behind a collection of old cassettes, a Tascam 8-track and a cassette deck for tape mastering. Around September 2011, there were a few rough sketches of songs, but lack of equipment and recording knowledge had become a restriction. Around this time, Will happened to receive an email from Florian Frenzel, expressing interest in helping to record some music. It was in Frenzel's home studio (containing a multitude of vintage equipment such as salvaged organs, analog tape delays, beautiful old microphones, home-made equipment, and even a reel-to-reel from a former GDR radio) where they began recording new songs and editing earlier cassette demos. By the beginning of Spring, the album was finally complete and handed over to Nils Frahm, who lovingly mastered it at his Durton Studio in Berlin. Floating in a gentle haze of melodies, soft white noise and intimate tape crackles, Balance
