Description
When multiple car wrecks rendered Samantha Crain injured and bed-ridden for a year and a half -- an experience that was explored within her last full-length album A Small Death in 2020 -- followed by the pandemic immediately afterward, the Oklahoman singer-songwriter finally slowed down.
Having lived within something of a nomadic, solitary existence for as long as she can remember, she's sprinted from city to city on tour while leaving love, consequences and tough conversations behind for the past two decades. Coming off the road has given her more time to reflect, more time to connect with the people in her life, and more time to let her curiosity blossom -- as revealing and challenging as it has been.
The experience has been a crash course in humanism, as she continues to question what it means to be a friend, a partner, a piece of a community. It's explored throughout the entirety of "Gumshoe" -- her forthcoming seventh studio album and first in half a decade, with an apt title that evokes the sense of mystery-solving she's welcomed these last several years of staying put in Oklahoma.
As a loner for almost her entire life, Samantha's recently come face-to-face with major life events, social interactions, and consequences that she was never exposed to before. The questions of being human that offer clarity, as much as they do a fog of uncertainty with what comes next. How will things play out? Who am I when I'm not onstage? How will I pay my bills? What am I willing to do for my family?
From helping her partner navigate their struggle with addiction, to working several odd jobs (a hair salon, a wildcare rescue, a resource center for unhoused people, and a liquor store doing booze deliveries), to discovering how to love and be loved -- Gumshoe finds Samantha piecing together the puzzle of how we find perspective, groundedness, responsibility, and coexistence in a world with other people. And while that puzzle might be unsolvable, it's at least worth the try.
