A closer look at Sampha’s debut LP Process on vinyl

Sampha bares all on his solo debut Process.

When you go through a personal trauma like the death of a family member, the natural tendency is to retreat, to re-group and find solace in the familiar. On his single ‘(No One Knows Me) Like The Piano’, Sampha Sisay does just that, returning to the instrument in his mother’s home, that plinks with a powerful intimacy.

Confronting the death of his mother in the years that preceded Process, the album stands as a defiant document of trauma and “growing pains”, of which Sampha said recently: “I felt like I was moving into new chapters of my life and of adulthood, expressing things that I had sort of been naive about.”

However, rather than allow moments of soul-searching an introversion to define the record, Process stands out as Sampha stands up, in defiance of the challenges he’s faced. ‘Brave’ is a term used too often to describe music that reveals some vulnerability (what music doesn’t?), but here, by placing himself front a centre, Sampha is hiding nothing.

Emboldened by his collaboration with Solange – chosen as our favourite record of 2016 – the cover of Process is something of a (conscious?) homage to A Seat At The Table, portraying an openness that is felt throughout the record.

Take a look at the release in more detail below and order your copy here.