Sam Lee Recasts Folk Songs In "Startlingly Original" (Guardian UK) Ways On 'The Fade In Time,' Out In The US June 16 Via Thirty Tigers

Watch the video for "Blackbird" here: https://youtu.be/dDQMVFgRv10

On June 16th, Mercury Prize-nominated folk polymath Sam Lee will release his US debut 'The Fade In Time,' via Thirty Tigers. Released earlier this year in the UK to rave reviews, the album was deemed "important and powerful" by the Evening Standard, and "surely one of the albums of the year" by the Guardian.

After a chance encounter led to his tutelage under the great Scottish Traveller singer Stanley Robertson, Sam Lee has emerged as a song collector in the vein of Alan Lomax, archiving traditional English, Irish, Scottish and Gypsy folk songs on his iPhone and laptop. Unlike Lomax, Lee performs the songs he collects, and on 'The Fade In Time' he frames them in "wonderfully inventive" (The Observer) arrangements that merge global traditions from Bollywood to contemporary classical.

Sam Lee and his band entered Imogen Heap's Hideaway Studio in Essex with Penguin Cafe's Arthur Jeffes and Jamie Orchard-Lisle as co-producers, and spent three months laying down tracks and layering music. "There were a huge amount of toys and instruments to play with at Imogen's," says Lee.

The result, 'The Fade In Time', is an impassioned work from an artist daring to reinterpret songs of the past in radically innovative ways. Whether he's augmenting hunting tales with Tarantella rhythms and horn arrangements inspired by Tajikistan wedding bands ("Johnny O The Brine") or recasting a lament of lost love as a choral requiem ("Lovely Molly"), Sam Lee's performances revitalize the stories and sentiments of centuries past for present and future generations.

Sam Lee is a former forager, wilderness expert and survivalist who also spent time moonlighting as a burlesque dancer. He was awarded the United Kingdom's 2011 Arts Foundation prize and nominated for the 2012 Mercury Music Award. Lee has also been the driving force behind the eclectic, award-winning folk club The Nest Collective, which has brought traditional music to all kinds of new stages and venues. Sam's band consists of Jon Whitten on Mongolian dulcimer/ukulele/Jew's harp, Flora Curzon on violin, and Josh Green on percussion.

'The Fade In Time' Tracklist:
01. Johnny O' The Brine
02. Bonny Bunch Of Roses
03. Blackbird
04. Lord Gregory
05. Over Yonders Hill
06. Moorlough Maggie
07. Phoenix Island
08. The Moon Shone On My Bed Last Night
09. Willie O
10. Airdog
11. Lovely Molly
12. The Moss House

Tour Dates:
07/18-19 -- Vancouver, BC @ Vancouver Folk Music Festival
07/21 -- Seattle, WA @ Fremont Abby
07/23 -- San Francisco, CA @ TBA
07/25-26 -- Calgary, AB @ Calgary Folk Fest
07/28 -- Providence, RI @ TBA
07/29 -- Boston, MA @ Museum of Fine Arts
07/30 -- New York, NY @ Joe's Pub
07/31 -- Philadelphia, PA @ Tin Angel
08/02 -- Washington DC @ TBA