Samia

May 11, 2024

Grand Jury turns 10, Samia celebrates with Twin Peaks cover

This year marks 10 years in business for Grand Jury Music.

For seven of those years, Samia has been releasing music via our little record label. To celebrate the anniversary, we’ve asked a few artists new and old across the roster to cover their favorite songs from the catalog.

When approached, Samia immediately selected “Making Breakfast” from Twin Peaks’ touchstone 2014 release, Wild Onion. It was the first release on Grand Jury, and officially turns 10 this August.

“Wild Onion was like a lightning strike of a record,” says Samia. “And Making Breakfast is just a perfectly-written song, painfully simple and effortlessly cool…I hope we did it justice.”

There’ll be more decade-capping celebrations to come later this year. In the meantime, catch Samia on the road opening for Bleachers beginning later this week.

Samia

September 26, 2023

Samia enlists Ruston Kelly to Reimagine “Dream Song”

Font Page Photo Credit: Pooneh Ghana

Today Samia enlists the help of Ruston Kelly for his rendition of “Dream Song,” the latest addition to the Honey Reimagined Single Series – the gorgeously simple take on the album closer joins past installments from Hovvdy, Maya Hawke & Blondshell.

In other cover news, Samia recently stopped by Maida Vale studios while touring the UK to perform a BBC Radio 1 session for Jack Saunders. While there she mashed up her Baby album-opener Pool with Lana Del Rey’s classic breakthrough “Video Games.” The results are immaculate, and you can listen to that (and the rest of the session) right here.

This weekend Samia will be opening a sold out Boygenius show at the Mann in Philly, before hitting All Things Go festival then embarking on a run of support dates for the universe’s current favorite singer-songwriter Noah Kahan. In the middle of all that, she also might be filming a little something special at a tiny desk somewhere…

Stay tuned.

Hovvdy

August 29, 2023

Samia’s Honey Reimagined Single Series returns with third installment

The third installment in the Honey Reimagined Single Series arrives today in the form of a bedroom pop reinvention of Samia’s “To Me It Was” by Hovvdy.

Samia shares: “‘To Me It Was’ is one of a few songs on Honey that existed in a bunch of different iterations before its final form. I wrote it with Christian Lee Hutson a year before we started making the record. We both played separate versions live in our sets a few times. When I first started playing it out it was this big rave up of a rock song. In the studio and in the context of the record the song just made more sense stripped down, with this really warm back porch feeling. Hovvdy turning it into a bedroom pop song feels exactly right – the perfect middle ground.”

Samia

July 25, 2023

Samia enlists Maya Hawke for second Honey Reimagined single

Today Samia continues her Honey Reimagined Single Series with a beautifully spare Maya Hawke cover of the anthemic title-track.

“When we were recording Honey for the album we added this ironic depth by turning what was originally a painful song into a kind of campfire signalong — big bouncy guitars, a happy melody, that endless refrain,” says Samia. “So I was eager to hear what Maya would do with it. Surprisingly, she stripped all of the campfire away. In her version you can hear every bit of the desperation in how spare the production is. Exploring these new vantage points in my own work is exactly what draws me to the Reimagined concept.”

Maya Hawke shares: “It’s an amazing thing when a favorite person writes a favorite song. I was honored to be asked to cover ‘Honey’ and I wanted to bring out the sadness I felt behind the celebration. I loved working with Will Graefe as a producer. I’ve never recorded a song without him and experiencing him as a producer was even better.”

Maya’s cover of “Honey” follows Blondshell’s cover of “Charm You” which gained notice upon its June release from the likes of Billboard who named the “buoyant album standout” one of their favorite Cool New Pop Songs, and Paste who deemed the “imploring and poutily enamored” cover to be one of their Best New Songs. Blondshell and Maya Hawke spoke about their mutual appreciation for Samia during a recent appearance on the Talkhouse Podcast, which you can listen to here.

In other news, Samia recently added additional tour dates with Noah Kahan this fall, and a notable appearance supporting Boygenius on September 30th at Philadelphia’s Mann Center. She’ll also perform at festivals including Outside Lands, Thing & All Thigns Go in the US, and End of the Road & Electric Picnic around her upcoming UK show at The Forum. Check the tour section for all dates.

Samia

June 22, 2023

Samia announces Honey Reimagined Single Series, Noah Kahan support dates, headline tour

Earlier this week Samia shared a new cover of “Charm You” recorded by Blondshell, the first in a series of single releases dubbed “Honey Reimagined” featuring a variety of artists (including Maya HawkeHovvdyRuston Kelly + more TBA) reinterpreting songs from Honey.

This collection of singles is inspired by 2021’s The Baby Reimagined, which featured versions of songs from Samia’s breakthrough debut LP, The Baby, recorded by Bartees Strange, Briston Maroney, MICHELLE, Anjimile, Christian Lee Hutson and more.

Samia shares: “I’ve always been vocal about community being important to me. I couldn’t do this without my friends. We reimagined The Baby in 2020 because we were all stuck at home during the pandemic but the idea felt so true to the ethos of this project that I wanted to try it again with Honey. It’s always exciting to give songs a new life, especially with such great musicians involved.”

Blondshell shares: “I’ve been inspired by Samia for such a long time. She puts so much of herself into her songs, so much love for people and places. That was one of the things that stood out to me most about Honey – all of the friendship and joy that cut through darkness. I really felt that on ‘Charm You’ and I’m so happy to be part of her project.”

In other news, Samia just announced more dates – a few supporting Noah Kahan, and a headline run with Venus & The Flytraps. Tickets available at samiaband.com.

 

Samia

April 12, 2023

Samia releases Maps / Country covers single & limited edition 7″

Anyone who bought a deluxe edition version of Honey earlier this year received a limited edition flexi disc featuring Samia covering Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs or Country by Porches. With those copies long gone, today Samia has released both covers digitally and unveiled a limited edition 7″ for purchase on Bandcamp now.

Samia

April 4, 2023

Samia releases Amelia music video & KEXP session

Today Samia shares the new music video for “Amelia,” shot on the road during the first leg of Honey touring by Muriel Margaret. It encapsulates everything that makes a Samia show so special, with a few behind the scenes treats thrown in for good measure.

“This whole crew are like family to me and making this video was the such an honor to do,” says director Margaret. “I just wanted it to feel like what it feels like to be friends with Samia. It’s joyful, and special, and something you want to capture and share with other people.”

In case you missed it, that run of dates also saw Samia stopping by KEXP for a session. She did some Baby classics along with “Dream Song” from Honey. Watch the whole thing, including an interview with Kevin Cole, below.

More dates are on the way, as Samia kicks off the second leg of Honey touring later this month with support from Christian Lee Hutson. Tickets available in the tour section now.

Samia

January 27, 2023

Honey is here

Sophomore albums are never easy, but they’re especially difficult when your debut makes the kind of lasting mark Samia’s 2020 outing The Baby made. So Honey arrives today with more than a bit of expectation.

In many ways it’s a totally different animal than The Baby – less rough around the edges, more lyrically direct, content to dwell in quieter passages. But it’s also a record about perspective, and as such interrogates some of the same ideas (even some of the same stories) that Samia tackled on The Baby, only from a new, more assured vantage. The Baby and its songs’ protagonists wanted approval. Honey doesn’t need it because it exclusively traffics in the sort of unvarnished truths that render approval irrelevant.

It’s Samia at her most bare, brave & beautiful. Filled with the courage of hindsight.

Listen deep wherever you stream music. Or own a copy below. The record deserves it.

Samia

January 24, 2023

Samia releases “Breathing Song” & “Honey” final double single before Friday album drop

Honey is out on Friday (pre-save or pre-order here), but there’s one more double single before we get to the finish line. A linked pair like “Pink Balloon” & “Sea Lions” before it, “Honey” & “Breathing Song” are both deeply sad. Only one of them does its best to convince itself that’s not true. The video for “Honey,” which also arrived this morning, was directed by Jacq Justice and features several versions of Samia all doing their best to keep it together, to varying degrees of success.

“To me Honey is the saddest song I’ve ever written, because it’s mocking my attempt to convince people I was good,” says Samia. “Caleb [Wright] turned it into a campfire song, though, and I love that it can be interpreted as fun too.”

Pre-orders are still available, with the final sweetart swirl variant arriving on Bandcamp earlier this month. Limited to 500 copies, and nearly sold out already. All pre-order options below.

Next month, Samia kicks off her US tour in support of Honey. She’ll be joined on the road by Tommy Lefroy. Brooklyn Steel is already sold out. Tickets to the rest of the dates available over in the tour section. All dates below.

Samia

December 6, 2022

Samia returns with “Pink Balloon / Sea Lions” double single

You’ve already heard “Kill Her Freak Out” & “Mad At Me” from Honey, Samia’s long-awaited follow up to 2020’s The Baby and 2021’s Scout EP. Today, the Nashville-via-NYC songwriter returns with two more emphatic reasons to pay attention, a pair of linked ruminations on the end of a relationship.

“Pink Balloon is trying to make amends by looking at it from a bird’s eye after everything got too complicated,” says Samia. “Sea Lions is not zoomed out – stewing in it, too angry to work it out or let it go, finding old voicemails and trying to decide where it went wrong on a loop until you have to run it off, running until you were never angry in the first place.”

A pair of twins in music video form arrived last night alongside the single, each directed by Samia with friend & collaborator Jacqueline Justice. While the palate of “Pink Balloon” matches that song’s spare intensity, both the video and track “Sea Lions” play coy with their intentions until exploding into a surprise climax.

The double single’s Max Taeuschel artwork, which mixes photos shot by Justice on the video set with handwritten lyrics from Samia, is below.

Honey is set for release January 27th of 2023, and is available for pre-order in multiple formats. Tickets for the extensive Honey tour are available now over in the tour section.