I’m captivated with the discovery of Canadian folk singer-songwriter Sam Lynch. This newly released single Keeping Time is the focus track for her full length project entitled “Little Disappearance” (released October 9, 2020 via the Birthday Cake label). Based in Vancouver and hitting some studio work in Montreal, Lynch engaged the medium of songwriting throughout childhood to process the world around her. In 2016, Lynch says she “finally surrendered to the magnetic musical pull that [I] had been resisting for so many years.”
Sam Lynch invites us into an inner chamber of self-reflection and then draws us in to the wider, bigger existential questions that are common to us all. “Now I keep watching people pass me by, it pulls the focus from the corner of my eye…I know the moon isn’t for me to hold on to…there’s got to be something bigger than me… I’ve been having trouble keeping time…Every time I close my eyes, another year passes by.”
The stirringly poetical and philosophical nature of the lyrics are beautifully and tenderly packaged in Lynch’s emotive vocal delivery, masterfully projected in softer whisper-like melodies in the opening, then building slowly into the revelation of the strength and power of her vocal capability by the near end of the track. The instrumentation artfully follows Lynch’s lyrical lead. Gentle and simple acoustic guitar lines open the song, followed by subdued percussion beats and carefully placed, truly gorgeous lines of a single violin. The song gains momentum and crescendoes into full strings, warm and steady rhythms on the drumkit, and the the shivers running up and down my spine seem to keep in perfect pace with the pulse of it all. Now it’s me who’s having trouble keeping time; I’m lost in the beauty of it all.
Lynch’s album (Little Disappearance) is a collection of songs circled around various forms of loss—loss of self, loss of memory, loss of time and youth; the experience of moving through your days, but feeling like little pieces are going missing as it’s all happening. I’m curious to find what other shining jewels this album might offer for my playlists.
