Photographer: SULLY
Styling: Ross Hook
Styling Assistant: eLiOLLie
Words: Josh Clubbe
London. A city where chaos is a currency and only those who learn to navigate the storm get the privilege to call it home. It’s beautiful, yet dark in all the same breath. A city where disparity is rife, where you can feel unseen in a sea of people, a place where future stars are about the be the now and where a song played to five people in a basement could be the next sound of a generation. It feels as though there is constant turning of the tide. But that’s London, and that’s how we like it. As Spring starts to feel like Summer, and the city progresses into the light again, we’re treated to the debut album of Sam Akpro, titled Evenfall, a characterised canvas of murky noir draped in a dreamlike surrealism.
Released on ANTI-, the ten-track album is a true representation of how Sam Akpro’s sound has evolved over the years into a fullness that epitomises energy, intensity and personality through grunge-fuelled guitars and unapologetically honest observations of life without rose-tinted spectacles.
There’s an eeriness when listening to Evenfall, and while it feels like the perfect soundtrack to any day, you’re constantly teleported into the honest world of Sam Akpro. But just as you’re taken into his world, you realise every track is just as personal to you—it’s universal and it’s a spiritual journey. This country has been craving a new sound, and whilst there is nothing new about alternative rock, the energy created by Sam Akpro in Evenfall makes it feel like we are discovering something freshly baked. Everything in life is cyclical and it feels as though guitar music is truly back.
Within a world of noise, which is an accurate depiction of British life, we as listeners love it when somebody cuts the bullshit and shows us how it really is. No more wrapping things up in cotton wool. Artists, please continue to test us and pull that rug from under us—give us the transparency that helps us see things properly, sometimes we just need that nudge in the right direction. When this happens, that’s when you can see the light turn to dark. You start to look forward to the beginning of the evening, and that’s Evenfall. Thank you, Sam Akpro.
Dance Wax sat down with Sam on the day of release to talk about the debut album in more detail.
Your debut album, how does it feel to be at this point? This feels like such a number of years in the works for you…
It feels kind of mad. Today, when I woke up, and I saw it outside, and outside of my laptop files, you know, I felt a very strong sense of completion. I like finishing things.
I’m loving Evenfall. Talk to me about the name, as it’s such a beautiful word to describe what is the beginning of the start of darkness. Did you have the name before you even started the creative process or was it coined when you heard the full flow?
After I made three songs, I got talking to my manager about an album and if we were to make it, that we should think of a name. I was like, “what describes that feeling of when your day is starting but the day’s ending?” I researched words that embodied this meaning and Evenfall was what came up. It looks nice.
I remember seeing someone say it’s going to be a staple of night bus headphones for years to come. I couldn’t agree more. It’s got a film-like feel—was this something you wanted to encapsulate when putting the songs together with the band?
After writing “I Can’t See The Sun”, I thought it had a theme and it felt cinematic, as if you’re walking down the street. I guess, subconsciously, it ran its course through all the other bits of songwriting. It was never 100% intentional, but the feeling ran deep enough for it to just become a thread between all the songs.
If you take a traditional-fictional narratives in literary, it’s almost synonymous with the flow of tracks from start to finish, starting of with a boom, a state of calm before another climax, the anti-climax and then the crescendo and state of calm again. Was this something important to you?
The order of tracks had to be right and the feeling of the songs, too. They’re all different emotions, and they had to flow into the right one, so each emotion had to flow naturally into the next emotion—it was important. There were a few different iterations of what the sequence was going to be, and there were more songs in there—and different songs too—but we took some out and then found the perfect flow.
Throughout, each track feels “ownable” to the listener as it teleports you into the world of the song, and each own their part in a differing state of mind. The energy feels like a spiritual journey. Explain a little bit about your state of mind when creating this album…
It was a state of deep thoughts over the last two years. I was very much aware of everything going on around me and things happening in my life, whether that was friendships or relationships. I was writing everything down constantly and thinking about what can inspire me to achieve the sound that I’m trying to get for this record. I was soaking a lot of things in, but also blocking a lot of things out so I could focus. I’d say that was the case for the last year and a half, or two years, a deep sense of focus as opposed to now, where I’m trying to find that again.
When you said you were going outside, and when you got the feel for the album, did you find you were locked into looking for certain things within the landscape of the world, to be able to allow you to fulfil what you wanted?
I think it’s about being open to stuff. When you’re in a state of creation, you allow yourself to be open to any kind of inspiration. I remember for the song “Gone West”, I wrote the beat and then went to the pub, and my friend said the line “gone west”, and I was like “oh, yeah, that’s a good line.” It’s a classic, but I the rawness, so I wrote it down, went home and then I finished the song while I had the lyrics. It’s that kind of openness, never thinking about music too much when you’re outside, just letting things happen, which then bleeds into what you do later on, when you go back to your process.
The visuals you’ve released so far are insanely good. I feel the aura of the album feels so carefully thought out that this must create quite a clear structure and desired outcome…
The songs helped with creating that visual element because there’s a lot of drama going on in them. We wanted to lock into the visual aesthetic of the album with what was done, and more than we have in the past.
One of the main things I’ve noticed over the years of being tapped in, is the important aesthetic is to every aspect of your creation—it’s measured.
Thanks man, I didn’t think it was, but if it comes across like that, that’s a good. Last year, I thought about this. Like what do I want it to look like? And what is this going to look like to people? Having the time and the resources to do that has definitely helped with the way it’s presented.
Are there any songs that are particularly special to you, do they signpost an era in time?
“I Can’t See The Sun”. Man, that was the one that inspired the whole album, it was the first one I wrote just over four years ago, in a jam. I was about to move out of my parents’ house, but they were on holiday, so I was chilling at their house, in the summer, for a month. Every day I was going out, coming back, and then I made the beat around seven or eight-ish, that kind of Evenfall time. I’d never made anything like this. My life came out of me, and it felt like the start of something.
I love Chicago Town, this obviously came out before the album, but after listening to the album in full, I love “Death By Entertainment”, “Gone West”… the list could go on, but finishing on “Cornering Lights”—wow. Why did this feel like the best song to finish the tape on?
It’s the lyrics, the way the lyrics are narrative-driven. You go from me talking about cutting corners and all this, and it feels very image led. It feels like you’re at the end of the night, and you can hear this with the audio of the taxi driver—it gives that feeling of this is the end. It had to go last.
Were there any references of music from years passed that were key in how you wanted the tracks to connect, orally and visually?
Massive Attack’s Mezzanine, Safe in the Hands of Love by Yves Tumour, and there’s a couple more of course, in that world of albums. Especially Safe in the Hands of Love. It’s got proper songs on there, but then it also has things that just take you into another world. I didn’t want the album to just feel like a collection of songs, like a mixtape, I wanted it to be a cohesive world.
I like the fact that on the album there’s times the band play, and we hear the musicality, it feels like interludes. Was that intentional, like you said when you looked at those albums and their special elements…
I really wanted everything pieced together correctly. There’s so many different moods, whilst they have the same spirit, and those musical moments made it flow better. I’ve always liked those instrumentals on albums where you can almost take your time to ponder over what you’ve already heard, and what you’re about to hear.
Once the album settles with people, which of the album cuts do you think people are going to resonate with most?
“Cherry”, “City Sleeps” and “Baka”. “Baka” feels like a very bold thing to have on there and I think it’s good to have those, electronic, weird-like things on the album, because I’ve always been into that stuff. I didn’t really know how to show that, but I guess that track was always speaking to me in some way—it feels like expression or emotion.
Talk to me about James Massiah, who wrote a poem about Evenfall. How did this come about.
We were talking ideas, and we found a way to portray the album, but not just like through the lens of a music video. Then we explained the idea to James, and James is really a nice guy, man, he was super on it—it was a good thing to do, and it added an extra layer to the album. It gives people more than what you would normally get from an album.
One of the key things I always like to ask people is, how do you want that album to be interpreted?
I just want it to be interpreted as a full piece, rather than singles. I want it to be an experience every time you listen to it. You don’t have to listen to it all the time, but when you do listen to it, it gives you a feeling that you can cherish or remember every time you hear it.
Evenfall. When light turns to dark, is like when this interview goes from a friendly chat into the publishing stage… feels right.
Listen to Evenfall below.