Winter Wheat John K. Samson

• 1 Select All Delete 03:54
• 2 Postdoc Blues 03:23
• 3 Winter Wheat 02:52
• 4 Requests 03:05
• 5 Oldest Oak at Brookside 02:33
• 6 Capital 03:15
• 7 17th Street Treatment Centre 02:29
• 8 Vampire Alberta Blues 03:44
• 9 Carrie Ends the Call 03:51
• 10 Fellow Traveller 03:38
• 11 Quiz Night at Looky Lou's 04:28
• 12 Alpha Adept 03:24
• 13 Prayer for Ruby Elm 04:01
• 14 VPW 13 Blues 03:17
• 15 Virtute at Rest 01:36
• Total Runtime 49:30

Info for Winter Wheat

Singer/songwriter John K. Samson enlists the rhythm section from his renowned band The Weakerthans for much of his second solo album, Winter Wheat. Inspired by the search for connection and community, his hometown of Winnipeg, and our individual and collective struggles with addictions to drugs, screens, and fossil fuels - Winter Wheat is a sprawling, masterful and timely work by a writer at the peak of his powers. Winter Wheat was produced in garages and homes through a Winnipeg winter by Samson’s partner and collaborator, Christine Fellows, and his Weakerthans co-founder and drummer/multi-instrumentalist Jason Tait, and mixed in the spring in Toronto by Robbie Lackritz (Bahamas, Feist). The spare and thoughtful arrangements also feature Greg Smith of The Weakerthans on electric bass, Ashley Au on double and electric bass, Leanne Zacharias on cello, and Shotgun Jimmie on electric guitar. Like the crop itself, which is planted in the fall, sprouts, goes dormant through months of snow and rises in the spring, Winter Wheat is a determined, beautiful, resilient response to difficult and extraordinary times.

John K. Samson, guitar, vocals

Produced by Jason Tait, Christine Fellows

John K. Samson
singer-songwriter for critically lauded indie rock band The Weakerthans, will release his first full length solo album, Provincial, this January 24th via Epitaph Records. The record contains newly recorded versions of songs from Samson’s previous two acclaimed EPs, “City Route 85” and “Provincial Road 222,” alongside a collection of beautifully evocative new tracks. Provincial is now available for pre-order at the Epitaph Store.

Provincial travels four routes woven into the prairie landscape of Manitoba, the Canadian province where Samson lives. It finds familiar landmarks and forgotten ones; it mines the precise and particular. For a video glimpse of Provincial’s prairie roadmap, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfqLrWMMPZ4

“Heart of the Continent,” describes the sense of loss and despair that haunts the former site of a Winnipeg landmark, set against a backdrop of lilting country folk. The melodic rocker “When I Write My Master’s Thesis,” details a young academic’s struggle to hold his life together as he tries to complete his research of a forgotten institution in tiny Ninette, Manitoba, while "www.ipetitions.com/petition/rivertonrifle/" is a song in the form of an online petition to honor the valiant hockey player Reggie “The Riverton Rifle” Leach.

They are hymns for the departed and rockers for the living, songs about dying villages, Icelandic longing, snowplows, broken glass, satellites, hockey skates, and staff room romances. In creating these sonic portraits, Samson talked to relatives, friends and strangers; he visited archives, a tuberculosis sanatorium turned RV Park and a forgotten cemetery. The resulting album contains 12 fierce, tuneful, vivid stories united by a deep sense of place.

The Weakerthans were born out of the Winnipeg-punk-scene. The group’s breakthrough album Reconstruction Site and its celebrated follow up Reunion Tour deftly merged a melodic punk with Bob Dylan-Ray Davies lyrical insights, earning a wider fan base and establishing Samson as a songwriter of immense talent. Paste Magazine wrote of Reunion Tour, “If such a prize existed, it would be the leading candidate for this year’s Punk Pulitzer.”

This album contains no booklet.