Salt River

Recorded by Sam Amidon (guitar, fiddle), Sam Gendel (saxophone, synthesizer) and Philippe Melanson (percussion) in Gendel’s Los Angeles home studio, Salt River contains all of the ingredients that make Amidon’s music uniquely expressive and irresistibly charming. Selected from a trove of folk, rock and jazz material which Amidon has been tweaking for decades, the ten tracks on Salt River include Lou Reed’s ‘Big Sky’, the Sacred Harp hymn ‘I’m on My Journey Home’, the Anglo-American shanty ‘Golden Willow Tree’, Yoko Ono’s ‘Ask the Elephant’ and Ornette Coleman’s ‘Friends and Neighbors’. Reimagined arrangements imbue each song with unexpected character and new meaning while Amidon’s distinctive singing voice resonates with an oddly seductive, honeyed timbre, which lends itself to the music’s exploratory nature. Minimalist instrumentation delivers maximal support, exemplified by Gendel’s funky organ and sinuous sax pairing with Amidon’s foot-stomping fiddle on ‘Tavern’ and Melanson’s superb conga drumming throughout the recording.