This week's PBS Feature Album is the debut release from Sam Teskey titled Cycles.
Well known as one quarter of Australian blues-soul outfit The Teskey Brothers, Cycles marks Sam Teskey's first venture into solo recording.
The creative journey for the album began in early 2020. With touring at a stand-still, Sam turned his attention to the vast back catalogue of music he'd amassed over the years. “When I’m 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,” he explains. “The Teskey Brothers is four songwriters and only a certain amount of my songs will get used. We might release one album every two years, so yeah, like four of my songs every two years just isn’t quite enough for me,” laughs Teskey.
What Teskey presents across this album is akin to a cosmic journey. The listener is free to traverse across the musical landscape from sprawling orchestral balladry, to dissonant, ambient soundscapes, from folk to heavy psych-rock freak outs. It's a surprising, thrilling and immersive listen.
Perfectly curated from track to track, listeners are encouraged to listen to the record from start to finish – to take the poetic journey lovingly created by Teskey.
In much the same way that a poem is the sum of its parts, even though a certain line can be beautiful on its own, similarly here each track can be happily taken in isolation but is so much more powerful when experienced as part of the bigger picture.
'Love, Don't Fear.
Let The Sun Bring The Light, Til The River Takes Us Home.
If the Dove Is Sold, Our World Goes Cold.
Then Love Returns.'
Cycles is available now via Ivy League Records.
Tune into PBS all week for your chance to win a copy of the album. Not a PBS member? Sign up now for your chance to win.
Cover photo by Kristian Laemmle-Ruff.
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
POOKIE - 'Halloween'
Kondi Band feat. Sweatson Klank - 'It's God's World (So Don't Do Bad)'
Headland featuring Maanyung - 'Nguura'
Firetail - 'Axe Painting'
Priori - 'Winged'
Bagful of Beez - 'Balene Bonanza'
Georgia State Line - 'The Ones We Love'
Gabriel Ahkmad Marin - 'Sunset'
Satoko Fujii / Alister Spence - 'Dice Piece 2'
