"the rooms in your house / pitch black and cold / the lights won’t turn on / you’ve tried every bulb / on the kitchen counter / there’s a rose bowl matchbook...
The burning waltz of 'House on Fire' by Los Angeles folk singer-songwriters and husband and wife duo Jim and Sam is a haunting song but feels more like a synopsis for a thick muscular novel or a Netflix episodic binger. The structure with tactile, nimble acoustic guitar lines that push the song along like a ticking clock, the bending sustaining wailing guitar like a desert coyote and Sam's drop dead (or deadly) gorgeous vocals telling a story that spins like the baubles on a nursery mobile dangling over an empty crib. When Jim's harmony drops around her voice it might feel like a faint remembrance more than a straight duet but it feels so right. Added layers of vox feel as mournful as they do beautiful.
When the bridge dances across this mysterious Western noir stage I smile to myself because as somber and dark as this song sounds, feels, I begin to detect a wink in the vocal performance. A sideways cajole, a joy in the telling of the story. It's ok, I don't mind being messed with and I realize it might all just be in my head. In any event, it makes 'House on Fire' the all more worth while.
[As the world shut down due to the Global Pandemic, Jim and Sam continued writing. Around the same time, they found out Sam was pregnant. “The songs came from having the time to sit with our thoughts, each other, and the big life change that was about to happen to us,” muses Jim. “We’ve always been driven by playing live and connecting with people face-to-face. These songs were born out of a need to figure out a way to keep the ship sailing when there was no wind in sight.”]
-Robb Donker Curtius
https://www.instagram.com/wearejimandsam/
https://www.wearejimandsam.com/
Jim and Sam have enchanted audiences with a series of fan-favorite releases, including 2017’s This Is What’s Left EP and 2018’s Yeah Whatever Young Forever EP. Along the way, they shot After So Many Days, which chronicled a year straight of them playing one show a day for a year. Emerging as a film festival phenomenon, it took home “Best Music Documentary” at Nashville Film Festival 2020, "Audience Award” at Hell's Half Mile Film & Music Festival 2019, "Special Jury Award" at DeadCenter FF 2020, and was an “Official Selection” at over 30 film festivals including Michael Moore's Traverse City FF 2019.
As the world shut down due to the Global Pandemic, Jim and Sam continued writing. Around the same time, they found out Sam was pregnant. “The songs came from having the time to sit with our thoughts, each other, and the big life change that was about to happen to us,” muses Jim. “We’ve always been driven by playing live and connecting with people face-to-face. These songs were born out of a need to figure out a way to keep the ship sailing when there was no wind in sight.”
Jim and Sam, singer songwriters, musicians, composers, folk, folk indie, Americana noir, noir, 'House on Fire' (Official Video), “Best Music Documentary” at Nashville Film Festival, "After So Many Days",
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.instagram.com/wearejimandsam/
https://www.wearejimandsam.com/
Jim and Sam have enchanted audiences with a series of fan-favorite releases, including 2017’s This Is What’s Left EP and 2018’s Yeah Whatever Young Forever EP. Along the way, they shot After So Many Days, which chronicled a year straight of them playing one show a day for a year. Emerging as a film festival phenomenon, it took home “Best Music Documentary” at Nashville Film Festival 2020, "Audience Award” at Hell's Half Mile Film & Music Festival 2019, "Special Jury Award" at DeadCenter FF 2020, and was an “Official Selection” at over 30 film festivals including Michael Moore's Traverse City FF 2019.
As the world shut down due to the Global Pandemic, Jim and Sam continued writing. Around the same time, they found out Sam was pregnant. “The songs came from having the time to sit with our thoughts, each other, and the big life change that was about to happen to us,” muses Jim. “We’ve always been driven by playing live and connecting with people face-to-face. These songs were born out of a need to figure out a way to keep the ship sailing when there was no wind in sight.”
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