Sam Gendel has announced his new album Advanced White Trash. Along with the announcement, the multi-artist is sharing the Single “Pattern Dance.” Says Gendel – “People think of me as a saxophonist, and I get that,” says Sam Gendel. “But a large portion of my music has nothing to do with that instrument.” “Pattern Dance” is the record’s clearest break and the furthest Gendel has ever strayed from his solo work: hyperpop glitch, maximalist and restless, with a vocal that lands laconic and heavily processed.

Gendel’s latest album. For those who know him for his more jazz-leaning, sax-led work, it may come as something of a sharp left turn, as he veers into territory that spans rap, R&B, glitchy electronica, and deconstructed hyperpop. However, for those who have been keeping an eye on this ferociously prolific artist (who has released 11 solo albums since 2017) this level of experimentation and songwriting craft may come as less of a surprise. “Songs are nothing new to me,” he offers. “Every once in a while, something emerges that demands me to connect the vocal mic; I oblige.”

Gendel has collaborated over the years with Fabiano do Nascimento, Sam Wilkes, Mach-Hommy, Ry Cooder, Louis Cole, Blake Mills, and Pino Palladino. “A friend told me that it sounds like I tried to synthesise Coca Cola in my garage,” says Gendel. The same friend also suggested the album sounds like “advanced white trash”, hence the title.

The idea of this record sounding like some twisted version of an American classic or a mutated form of trash culture, is largely rooted in some of the influences that went into it. “I watch a lot of YouTube,” Gendel explains. “Rolling Loud festival performance videos, celebrities hocking products, interviews. Every cultural media outlet pumps out insane amounts of videos, and I end up watching most of it.” However, rather than just let it be useless brain rot, he funnelled it into the work he was making. “I can’t imagine just consuming it without somewhere for it to go,” he says. “That would feel like the most insane mental constipation; I’m glad I was able to defecate this album onto the gravestone of American culture.”

In many ways, the music and the vocals for this album were born from two completely separate artistic periods, which makes sense given the idiosyncratic feel of the record. “I recorded all the instruments first, improvising the arrangements in real time, without a concept of the vocals,” Gendel explains. “I recorded the vocals about six months later, in essentially one sitting.”

Although the vocals very nearly didn’t happen at all because Gendel lost his phone with all the lyrics on it. “During a stay in Japan, I dropped my phone and it fell right through a slit into a storm drain,” he recalls. Initially he figured it was as good as gone but then he decided to go back for it two days later. He borrowed tools from a building site to jack up slabs of concrete and, miraculously, found his phone, still dry and with battery. “I immediately emailed the lyrics to myself, in case the phone decided to fail for some reason,” he says.

However, it all ended up being in vain. “When I returned home from that trip and finally sat down to record the vocals for the album, I ended up scrapping every single lyric I had written on my phone, and just improvised the lyrics as I recorded each song.”

Sam Gendel
Advanced White Trash
Tracklisting

1. Final Fantasy
2. Snap That Chain
3. Don Pascual
4. Pattern Dance
5. Swan
6. Choir
7. Beanbag
8. This Is The Night Of My Death
9. Nothing At All

Pre-order Advanced White Trash by Sam Gendel HERE