Sam Moss always looks for the irregular pieces of wood at his local lumber yard. “They have a pile of weird scraps that they can’t sell,” says the woodworker and singer-songwriter based in Staunton, Virginia. “I like to paw through and take a bunch of odd pieces and make them into strange little tables or whatever.” When he’s not touring, Moss is at home in his workshop or doing handyman jobs around town. “I do a lot of work fixing and renovating houses, where you want straight lines and functionality. But my woodworking is the opposite, and I get a lot of joy out of these odd shapes.”
He brings a similar philosophy to his music, turning stray thoughts and errant emotions into bespoke musings on the world and his place in it. Swimming, his latest effort, is an album about small moments, modest joys, walking in the woods or feeding the ducks – nothing life-changing, but everything life-sustaining. “I felt the birds give meaning to an otherwise broken day,” he sings on “Feathers”, with its crisp banjo strums. “I wouldn’t describe myself as an inspirational songwriter, but I feel the way I think a lot of people feel. I feel a lot of heaviness, but also a lot of joy. When I’m writing, I try not to be devastatingly sad or manically upbeat, but somewhere in between.”
Moss started writing and recording in Boston, where he studied music at Berklee and became a fixture on the local music scene. After recording and self-releasing three albums of well-observed folk songs, he followed his partner down to Virginia, where she studies Shakespearean drama. There he found a good balance between music-making and woodworking. “If I’m working with wood and can get into a groove with it, I do love listening to music. Using my hands to create things that are physical leaves room for me to get into the esoteric songwriting headspace.”
When Moss was ready to record his fourth album, he knew he wanted to find new people. He booked time at Betty’s in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the studio run by Sylvan Esso, and invited one of his personal heroes to produce: Joe Westerlund of DeYarmond Edison and Megafaun. Together, they assembled a backing band of multi-instrumentalists who stretched the songs into those odd shapes that Moss always looks for.
“It ended up feeling like summer camp,” he says. “I really like to work live, so there had to be a certain amount of trust there. We had to work fast, but everybody created these magic moments of surprise. Like ‘Moonbeams’ – the take on the album is the very first time we played together. We cut it a few more times, but that version had a good, spontaneous energy.” Moss’s friend and tourmate Jake Xerxes Fussell dropped by for an afternoon to play guitar on “Lost”, which came together just as quickly. “When I listen to that song, I can hear everybody in the room being surprised at each other. I can feel them getting to know each other in real time.”
For the frayed and menacing “Eyes”, Moss sat in the drum booth, played a repeating part on acoustic guitar, and watched the musicians tear into the song. “I had very little work to do with my simple theme, so I could look out at them going nuts. They were giving the song everything, and I was just leaning back, watching it all happen. That’s one of the moments when I saw the song blooming right in front of my eyes.”
Swimming is out now via Sleep Walk Songs