The Vernon Spring :: “Under A Familiar Sun”
London-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and composer Sam Beste has softly been creating music under his melodic moniker, The Vernon Spring, as far back as 2019. Releasing a plethora of various singles and digital tracks before his first official physical body of work entitled “Still” with fellow musician Gwilym Gold of Golden Silvers, Beste returns to the atmospheric altitude with perhaps his most cosmically compelling and staggeringly sophisticated work to date, “Under A Familiar Sun.” A beautifully bold expedition into the heart, mind, and soul of the human spirit, The Vernon Spring acts as a volumeless vessel for the body to teleport tonally through space and time with eager energy and complex comfort while scoffing at the darkness surrounding us. Blissfully breaking away from the cruel chains of reality, Beste’s music is a quick cure for universal sorrow and doubtful direction into the unknown as the musician carefully conjures the sonic spells necessary to bring listeners of the past, present, and future together for this healing experience. Across the album’s 12 tracks, whose bidding into sensitivity separates itself from the physical world with wonderful expressions of love, family, the natural world, and the ultimate connection to universal awareness.
“This album is dedicated to the love of my life, Saoirse, and our sons, Shea, Orrin, and Oisín.”
Photo: Saoirse Fitzpatrick
“Under A Familiar Sun” is a spiritual spectacle for the senses as Beste, accompanied by a wide range of rich and robust rhythms, travels to the center of a grateful galaxie to serenade its lyrical layers with tracks such as “The Breadline (Feat. Max Porter),” the album’s first single “Norton,” and the epic “Requiem For Reem,” which Beste says, “The title came to me as I was on the train on the way to master this album. Someone sent me a link to all the known names of children killed by the Israeli state in Gaza. Organized in order of age, it’s overwhelming to face the truth of this immoral violence. As I looked through each age group, the name Reem reached out to me in the 4-year-olds, the same age as my second son. Reem means gazelle or deer and symbolizes beauty, purity, and tenderness - all qualities which have themselves often felt at risk of loss these past few years. My son Oisín’s name also means little deer, which gave the song title additional meaning. I feel most connected to the emotional reality of recent events when viewing them through a parental gaze. Barely a day has gone by where I don’t think of my fellow Palestinian parents, imagining them singing their children to sleep in make-shift tents, intentionally starved of access to food, clean water, and sanitation infrastructure, having already been forced to flee again and again whilst enduring the most intensive and indiscriminate bombing campaign in modern history, with no escape route because the borders have been closed. It has been difficult for me to contemplate the pain of parents having to watch their children being amputated without anesthetic, knowing that medicine was being withheld. Parents are still searching the rubble for the remains of their children, and so many have been orphaned - 40% of Gazan families are now looking after children who are not blood relatives. It was from a feeling of solidarity that I renewed my vow to do all that I can to support Palestinians in their century-long struggle for self-determination, human rights, and justice, which must include accountability for the relentless crimes against humanity at the hands of the Israeli state we have been witnessing.”
What initially drew me to Beste’s music was his radical collaboration with the mighty Eric Timothy Carlson, formally from the Bon Iver camp, for the album’s marvelous cover and atmospheric aesthetic. Visuals that are effortlessly vital to the music’s esoteric essence and natural elements, The Vernon Spring embarks on an entry into enlightenment similar to his complicated contemporaries but with a slightly more orchestrated openness into oblivion. Where his family acts as his muse and the sideways world, his fundamental flame, which flickers in the freakiness of the dark like an intense inspiration, “Under A Familiar Sun,” is simply a beached ship set for all the stationary sunsets of eternity. Emptying his lungs into the organic ocean, its whimpering waves serenading the seagulls above and the anatomical albatrosses all around, The Vernon Spring is a fierce and peaceful force that should be front and center during your next radical retreat into spirituality and personal growth. Set for release in early May from the OPIA Community, listeners can expect an ethereal experience from start to finish.
