Sam Redmore has today released his new album titled ‘Modulate’ via Jalapeno Records. A brash mix of world sounds, all coming together on a truly integrated dance floor with sounds that surround and energy that immerses. An album that you can completely let yourself go with and in every peak and valley that the music takes you through.
Each track has a style, and every beat tells a story. And, while this is a single artist, there is an inclusion felt that welcomes you and a surprise in every song that takes you where you least expect it.
About Sam Redmore
Having built up a huge following for his edits and remixes, Sam Redmore truly broke onto the UK music scene in 2022, serving up slice after slice of original eclectic funky goodness with debut album Universal Vibrations, a release packed full of quality global grooves that had the ability to light up any dancefloor.
Radio support came fast, with BBC 6 Music spinning tracks from the album hundreds of times (including over 100 plays for Nagu) and Sam contributing guest DJ mixes for a wide variety of shows including Craig Charles, Huey Morgan, Afrodeutsche and Cerys Matthews.
Having built up a huge following for his edits and remixes, Sam Redmore truly broke onto the UK music scene in 2022, serving up slice after slice of original eclectic funky goodness with debut album Universal Vibrations, a release packed full of quality global grooves that had the ability to light up any dancefloor.
Radio support came fast, with BBC 6 Music spinning tracks from the album hundreds of times (including over 100 plays for Nagu) and Sam contributing guest DJ mixes for a wide variety of shows including Craig Charles, Huey Morgan, Afrodeutsche and Cerys Matthews. Sam tells us about the follow up ‘Modulate’.
“Whilst creating Universal Vibrations, at times I felt unsure whether I had it in me to create an album’s worth of original compositions. Coming from a DJ/remixer background, it felt like a big step to start pieces of music from scratch and develop them until they were finished. With the debut album in the bag however, for Modulate I was more confident in what I was doing, and the thought process changed from “can I do this?” to “how would I like to do this?”. I found this change in mentality allowed me to enjoy the process much more than with the first album.
The sound of Modulate is an expansion of what Universal Vibrations started. My core ethos remains the same – to create music for dancefloors, usually involving a combination of electronic and programmed sounds with organic, live instrumentation. I think the sound palette on Modulate is more diverse, but the musical focus is a little more refined. I pick up inspiration from many different kinds of music – from house, disco, broken beat and funk through to afro latin styles including afrobeat, cumbia, salsa and samba – and try to combine things to create something exciting and new.
One key development in the process of writing Modulate has been putting together a live band and seeing first-hand the response people have to hearing the music. This has given me both enthusiasm and new ideas for how new pieces of music might fit into the set, with a number of tracks from Modulate being trialled and perfected through live performance over the last 12 months or so.
There are a large number of musicians involved in the creation of Modulate, with some of the vocal collaborations particularly noteworthy.
Dele Sosimi is a hugely respected name in the afrobeat world, and somebody whose music I have been following for a long time – well before I started making music myself. To collaborate with him on a track really was a big moment, with his contributions and influence on so much music that I love a huge deal to me. When I received the vocal recording for Home it immediately elevated music I was already proud of to a new level. You can hear the depth of emotion in Dele’s voice, and listening back to the track now I can’t help but feel that emotion within. There is a melancholy there but also hope and uplift – things that are important to me both in music and in life.
Likewise, Abdominal is an MC I have had so much admiration for from way back. His voice, lyrics and flow are truly unique in an extremely crowded field and it was exciting to team up with him on this, tackling the subject of climate change – an issue that becomes more important with every passing day.
Lumi HD provided some of the standout moments on Universal Vibrations, and there was never any doubt she would be an important part of Modulate. I believe she is exceptionally talented yet hugely underrated, and her time in the limelight is surely on the way.”
Featured image by Khali Ackford.
