Music > Album Reviews

Samana - All One Breath

25/02/22

The word 'Samana' is derived from a Sanskrit term meaning 'pacifiction'. In yoga, 'samana vayu' is one of the five energy forces, and is known as the 'balancing air'. 'All One Breath' by Samana is the second release from the musical partnership of  Rebecca Rose Harris and Franklin Mockett. Both the album title and the duo's name encapsulate the essence of their sound, as well as highlighting the route of their spiritual path.
 
Unlike their 2019 debut, 'Ascension', which was written and recorded in a farmhouse in the Welsh mountains, 'All One Breath' is a distillation of more than sixty pieces of music, all of which were written during 2020, when a three week residency in France became an enforced stay in an old barn in the French countryside during lockdown. Whittled down to ten tracks on their return, 'All One Breath' was again recorded in Wales, and serves as an exploration of silence, solitude and time, as well as a recollection of personal experience and memories.
 
Beginning with 'Melancholy Heat', with its rich, lazy guitar and smouldering vocals, 'All One Breath' traces a circular journey and embraces a panoramic range of style and influences, ranging from progressive folk to transcendental blues. In 'Live For The Road', the slide guitar introduces a sense of vastness and open space. Harris' vocals croon gently in 'The Glory of Love', yet are meanderingly meditative in 'The Beach'. They become lazy and soulful in 'Patience', a track where the opening guitar evokes sun-drenched memories of Fleetwood Mac's 'Albatross' before the song reaches its dramatic finale. 
 
By the time we reach 'Leaving', and 'Begin Again' (with its gently strummed guitar, and cello accompaniment), it is almost as though the listener has been taken on their own enlightening journey of discovery as well.
 
7/10