Sam Newton has emerged from musical hibernation. After a two-year hiatus, the
Sydney-based songwriter has returned rejuvenated and replenished –and with a fresh
sonic perspective.

The new page in Newton’s deepening songbook can be traced back to a winter’s evening on a hillside in the far NSW south-coast town of Upper Brogo. In the midst of a self-
imposed “100 Songs in 100 Days” challenge, the writer experiments with a new guitar tuning and penned a song called ‘The Year of the Rabbit’.

The composition never made its way on to subsequent records but remained an “ever-
present companion”. When it finally entered the world in the middle of 2023, its stirring string-quartet chamber-pop arrangement, an echo of the Fab Four’s Eleanor Rigby,
marked a stark departure for an artist rarely seen without guitar in hand.

The following single, ‘Tell Me That You Love Me’, sees Newton experiment with new
production techniques and all-in-one arrangements, without guest musicians, venturing
further from the burrow he dug into the fertile earth of Americana and Alt-country.

“The song was just about playing with ideas and production,” the songwriter says. “And I
liked that I hadn’t done anything like it before. I ummed and ahhed about releasing it or
just to keep it in the bedroom drawer. Its release is about getting over my own
insecurities as a musician. You want to put out music that you’re proud of and this song
was the product of an accident –it was an exciting thing to stumble on. I plucked it out of
the air –it was totally different to anything else I’d released before.”

‘Tell Me That You Love Me’ is the first single from Newton in which there’s no other players, and the track has the intimacy and immediacy of a recorded work borne of a single mind. Multi-tracked vocals flow over a bedrock of machine beats and synth stabs, forming a heady pop coalition of both the organic and synthetic.

Through Newton’s latest single, ‘Yes’, another new chapter to his musical journey has been started, one that reflects his commitment to using music as a powerful tool for social change. ‘Yes’ is a call to action, a reminder that music can be a driving force for positive transformation.
Stay tuned for the release of ‘Yes’ on September 11th, and join Sam Newton in amplifying the message for a better future.

“Sam Newton’s music has a way of putting you at ease while also making you look deeper within yourself. It’s brave as much as it is vulnerable.”
Nkechi Anele (Presenter, Triple J )

“I like this kid – little twists where others would go straight.”
Tim Rodgers (musician, actor, writer)

“A very strong album from a songwriter clearly refining his craft, one song at a time.”
Chris Familton – Rhythms Magazine (Nov/Dec 2016)