Johanna Samuels - Excelsior (LP)

Facts Limited colored vinyl LP pressing. A wholly personal document, Excelsior! Finds LA-via-NYC songwriter Johanna Samuels exploring the nuances of her interpersonal relationships and the importance of listening to each other, understanding that a conversation doesn't have to end because one person has to be right and the other wrong. Excelsior! #takes it's name from the signature that Samuels' grandpa would use before he sadly passed away in December 2020. The album was recorded deep in winter, snowed-in at producer Sam Evian's upstate New York cabin, Flying Cloud. Recorded mostly live to tape with Samuels' band - Harrison Whitford (guitars), Garret Lang (bass), and Sean Mullins (drums) - it was Evian's first full-length production at his new cabin studio. Excelsior! #is as gently elegant as we've come to expect from Evian's own records, but it's driven by Samuels' easy yet arresting melodicism and confidently vulnerable delivery.