Sam Tudor’s EP Hidden Minute takes on a time-bending quality, grappling with impermanence and the grief of always going forward.
Sam Tudor’s Hidden Minute takes on a time-bending quality with wandering jazz riffs and deliberate hits on the kit that land ever so slightly after the beat. Opening with the question, “do you feel free now?” this experimental, baroque-pop EP makes a nice little nest for existential dread, with bass clarinet and strings to soften the catch.
“Lobby” morphs into a densely textured arrangement with dramatic slides and pensive words, “I hate to share the future with the days I’ve had before.” Full and atmospheric, this mix is layered with the soft plucks of an upright bass against the piercing pull on a violin.
While Hidden Minute begins with tension and progresses with reluctance, “Fear You” soft launches into a change of pace, elevating the mood with synth swells and cymbal crashes. Bouncy bilateral rhythms juxtapose rock-style drums, decorated with static effects, beeps, and bops, and a classic guitar shred at the end.
Kicking back a bit, Hidden Minute settles back into a saunter, but with more forward momentum than when it began. The closing track “Fixture” grapples with impermanence, “I’m stuck with something new, something old, burning out the timer on a temporary soul”. It’s about the grief of progress; continuing to be in a world that maybe once felt more comfortable calling home, and recognizing one’s own relevance in it: “I’m a fixture now, we hold events and friends come smoke outside”.
Tudor’s latest EP feels much more like an admittance than anything else; a much more beautiful way of phrasing “it is what it is.” This moment is temporary, and there is appreciation to be gleaned from an impending end: “change today like a lullaby, change today and let it go, change the space that you occupy, before it gets too close.”
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