Sam Teskey - Cycles

Sam Teskey (born 1989) is an Australian blues musician, best known for his work with the Teskey Brothers. Sam won the Aria Award for Engineer of the Year in 2019. His debut studio album, "Cycles", was released on 8 October 2021 via Ivy League Records. Inspired by the cycles of life, Sam Teskey, guitarist of critically-acclaimed, blues-soul band The Teskey Brothers, announces his debut solo album, "Cycles", a collection of music influenced by the great English psychedelic bands of the late '60s & '70s, out now on Decca Records. The first track on the album, 'Love', is a stirring, pastoral folk song that establishes the album's own life cycle, ending with the reprise 'Then Love Returns'. Born out of lockdown in early 2020, with touring at a stand-still, Teskey relished in the opportunity to return to his vast back catalogue of incomplete musical musings he'd amassed whilst writing for The Teskey Brothers over the years. Painstakingly digging through old demos, spending time with the development of the songs, keen to make a record that would be enjoyed as a complete body of work. Starting where most finish, he settled on the track-listing before recording a note, thoughtfully building on the original ideas, with each track evolving to seamlessly melt together with the next. On his debut album, Teskey says : "When on the road touring, I spend most of my time writing songs, so I have a massive collection of songs and ideas ready to go. Once I figured out that they all work together like that, it happened really organically. I love listening to albums that have progression and take you on a journey. A big point of this album is for people to create their own journey and their own story. I can say many things about the record, but I want to leave the experience up to the listener. It feels nice to put the creativity back in the listeners' hands." "Cycles" offers a thrilling and immersive journey; the seven tracks ebb and flow like a stream of consciousness, shying away from traditional song structures and negotiating a range of genres from orchestral balladry, dissonant and ambient soundscape, all the way through to folk and heavy psych-rock. Determined to capture the music in its purest form, Teskey, enlisting the help of musician friends, live recorded the album almost exclusively live to tape at his analogue home studio in Warrandyte. The Importance of experiencing this album as a whole is evident. In much the same way that a poem is the sum of its parts, and particular lines can be beautiful on their own, here, each track can be happily taken in isolation but holds much more weight when experienced as one. After more than a decade on the music scene, and with an international following, three albums, and four ARIA Awards, the Teskey Brothers' mesmerising guitarist Sam Teskey is going solo, detailing his new record, single, and tour today. Having first formed the Teskey Brothers back in 2008 with his brother Josh alongside bassist Brendon Love and drummer Liam Gough, Sam Teskey has slowly become one of the most renowned performers in the local music scene. Now, he's going it alone, with debut solo album "Cycles" set. Described as a "cosmic journey, from sprawling, orchestral balladry to dissonant, ambient soundscapes, from folk to heavy psych-rock freak outs", there's no doubting the fact that Teskey has created something truly unique with Cycles, something that is proven with the record's lead single, "Love". Fittingly, "Then Love Returns", a reprise of the track, closes out the record. ""Cycles". That's the concept of the album for me," Teskey explains. "It just loops around in that sense. It could be a life cycle. Or a year. Or a day. At the start you can see the sunrise and then it goes all the way around and you're seeing the same sunrise. The whole movement of a cycle." A warm, soulful example of the folky, rock balladry that Teskey has a penchant for, the tune also comes accompanied by a lyric video which sees Sam playing Bob Dylan in reverse in a scenic homage to the classic "Subterranean Homesick Blues". Having originally recorded his solo album as a chance to showcase more of his own music inspired by the great English psychedelic bands of the late '60s and '70s, Teskey found himself working on the album in early 2020 during the Covid-inspired lockdowns many of us experienced. Capturing the record at his almost exclusively analogue home studio in Warrandyte (where the Teskey Brothers had previously recorded their albums), Teskey called upon his musician friends to help capture the music live. "So many elements of the album needed to be live tracked," he explains. "There's nothing quite like getting great players in a room and recording that as opposed to layering it with overdubs and what not. That was a very special experience for me just to record that and witness having those amazing musicians in the room together. It was essential to have." He's more used to wielding a guitar than a microphone, but with an ARIA tucked firmly under his belt, Sam Teskey has walked towards his solo album debut with eyes wide open. After all, he's surely done his 10,000 hours. Teskey is one half of the Teskey brothers (the siblings) and a quarter of the Teskey Brothers (the band), who enjoyed a stellar slew of nominations at the 2019 ARIAs for their second album, Run Home Slow. With their earthy, blues-centred sound, the band went home with Best Group and Best Blues and Roots Album, while Sam took out the Engineer of the Year award for his production work. But their seemingly overnight success was rooted in more than a decade of practice. Now Sam Teskey is stepping out with Cycles, his first solo offering. Favouring Pink Floyd over Otis Redding, it might seem Teskey felt hampered by the band's loyalty to the soul greats. But "Cycles" is not so much the exploration of a newfound style, as it is a carefully curated exhibition of the surplus creativity that's been simmering away while the Teskey Brothers were on the boil. Teskey's creative juices flow freest with the band on tour, writing prolifically on their afternoons off in hotel rooms around Australia. Compiling Cycles was akin to a sonic archaeological dig, with Teskey selecting old demos that fitted together as a solid body of work before a single note was recorded in 2021. But while the songs may have been birthed on the road, these final recordings are a home affair. Brought to life in the Teskeys' beloved analogue-only home studio (the same place the Teskey Brothers recorded both their albums), Cycles crackles with retro authenticity and the influences of decades long gone. It is a concept album, first and foremost, designed to be heard in one heady cloud of meandering guitar solos and hymn-like vocal layers. Gone are the outright soul riffs and the familiar blues progressions of the Teskey Brothers. This Teskey is a minimalist at heart, digging deep into lingering guitar notes and slow-moving harmonies until he finds their still, meditative core. The album is not without momentum, though. 'Don't Fear' is a savvy combination of 1960s-flavoured groove and woozy lead guitar notes that dance around an exotic string line, while 'Let the Sun Bring the Light' sounds like the Beatles, circa 'Come Together'. From here, there's a brief, unexpected detour via a bluegrass ballad 'Till the River Takes Us Home', complete with slide guitar and nostalgic, geography-based lyrics. It's a pleasant palette-cleanser ahead of a descent into prog-rock territory that lasts until album close. While the genre clash might have to be heard to be believed, it's anything but erratic. The psychedelic three-part epic 'If the Dove Is Sold' (born of an hour-long jam session recording) eases us gently into more experimental sounds, with its slow burning build past hazy vocal choruses into increasingly distorted guitars. By the time we reach its extension in 'Our World Gets Cold', Teskey has lulled us into his world of slow-moving textures, organ-like drones and nebulous meters that allow the music to ebb and flow as it pleases. "Cycles" is an intuitive, hypnotising journey as full of creative freedom for the listener as it was for Teskey to create : an open canvas for the imagination. Music often has the power to capture the singular highlights within our lives, but rarely can it capture the flow and change of the entire process. Nonetheless, Australian blues artist and Grammy-nominated sound engineer, Sam Teskey, has managed to do that, telling the journey of... us. From womb to death; sonically using music to add his own interpretation to the beauty of existence. As with all things throughout humanity, "Love" is its beginning, calming layered vocals build to guitar expressionism, that while not explosive displays the quiet passions that love involves. The guitar is Sam's weapon of explanation and much of the album uses it in lieu of vocals to describe life's story. It works to great effect, separating the vocalised tracks, almost asking the listener to take a moment to ponder and reflect. The flowing instrumentals of the intro and outro tracks throughout the album demonstrate the fun, emotional intensity, and quiet moments of contemplation we all experience through our own cycles. "Let The Sun Brings The Light In" and its outro build us into the middle of our lives, and the album. While "If the Dove Is Sold (outro)" fires into a combination of blues and psychedelic rock, pivoting us toward our own exit through the distant ebb of Sam's guitar on "Our World Goes Cold". The final track "Then Love Returns" repeats the cycle's unspoken motif. Using slowed vocals and a monotonous drone of drums, we near the end with a celebration and a continued approach to 'Love', once again. In the end, we have a body of work, Sam Teskey's brilliant debut, that itself deserves to be celebrated. The album art by Maria Torres, itself adds another visceral dimension to the overall work, complimenting Sam's guitar lyricism. In one image we see both birth, our path, and oblivion on the other end before the cycle begins anew.

1 Love 5:44

2 Don't Fear 5:35

3 Let The Sun Bring The Light 7:21

4 Til The River Takes Us Home 4:21

5 If The Dove Is Sold 11:16

6 Our Work Goes Cold 5:30

7 Then Love Returns 10:57

Written-By, Recorded By, Producer [Produced By] - Sam Teskey

Recorded At - Half Mile Harvest Studios, recording studio run by The Teskey Brothers, located at Sam Teskey's house.