WARCHESTRA
“The idea behind Contours was to blur the line between space and sound, to let the environment become a compositional partner. I recorded real acoustic spaces and used them to inform the textures and structure, so the album feels like a journey through places that resonate emotionally as much as sonically.”
Contours is Dan Samsa’s genre-defying debut album: a widescreen blend of techno, jungle, jazz, and contemporary classical detail, built from warm piano motifs, intricate textures, and live brass and vocals. The project began with 360° spatial recordings captured in resonant London spaces (including Southwark Cathedral), which were used to generate the album’s core atmospheres and structural shapes. Around this immersive foundation, the piano, brass, vocals, drums, and synths were then composed and layered, allowing the music to grow organically from its sonic environment. Featuring collaborations with vocalists Rosie Strobel and Zosia Jagodzinska, Contours moves from dark rhythmic intensity to expansive, euphoric release.
ARTWORK
“The cover was intended as a time capsule: part artwork, part portal, part reflection of a world learning to live remotely.”
The artwork for Contours was created in collaboration with designer Çiğdem Buru, conceived during the pandemic and released in its immediate aftermath. Built around abstract forms and bold reflective foil elements, the design mirrors the album’s themes of space, texture, and movement, suggesting sound as something tangible and physical. The entire back cover of the vinyl was transformed into a large foil QR code, turning the record sleeve itself into a bridge between physical object and digital experience. Developed closely with Dan Samsa, the artwork became an extension of the creative process: layered, tactile, and experimental, shaped by a period of isolation, reflection, and re-emergence.
CONTOURS: THE ALBUM
“The album was written from the inside out, starting with sonic spatial textures, then the composed instrumentation sculpted around them.”
THE MAKING OF CONTOURS
Contours was shaped through an unusual mix of technologies and approaches that reflected its moment in time. Central to the album was the creative use of 360° spatial recording as a compositional tool, with real acoustic environments captured and used to generate the textures and structural foundations of the music. Around these immersive sound worlds, instrumentation and electronic production were layered, blending elements of techno, jungle, jazz, and contemporary classical ideas into something deliberately hard to categorise. The result is a record that feels fluid and exploratory, technologically curious, stylistically open, and unmistakably of the time.
“Samsa brought together brilliant musicians and engineers, fusing genres and techniques, carefully directed and shaped into a single evolving vision.”
MUSIC VIDEO:
PORTRAIT OF LATOYA
This music video below was created as an intimate, non-sensational portrait of Latoya. We watch her wake, dress, and step into her identity, free from commentary or judgement. The concept was developed during a period of intense public debate around trans lives, and the film responds to that noise by quietly shifting the focus back to something simple and human: a person becoming who they are, in peace. Produced by Çiğdem Buru and edited by Matt Heeley, with Latoya as the central performer, the video is not an argument but an invitation, to look past labels and politics and to see each other, first and foremost, as people.
“I wanted to step away from the arguments and just show a person becoming themself, doing what makes them happy.”
IMMERSIVE SURROUND SOUND PERFORMANCES
The album was brought to life through a series of immersive live performances, including a landmark show at The Albany, Deptford, staged completely in the round. The audience stood at the centre of the experience, surrounded by six brass players positioned around the room, while Dan Samsa and the vocalists performed from a central platform. The sound system combined two worlds: the sub scoops of a full dub rig delivering seismic, body-shaking low end, and a conventional multi-speaker surround system carrying the detailed spatial elements of the music. Rather than a traditional concert, it became a true 360-degree sound installation, live musicians, electronics, and immersive audio design merging into a single enveloping environment. The series also included a breathtaking performance at EartH Hackney, an acclaimed art and music venue in east London known for its restored Art Deco theatre and cutting-edge L-ISA immersive sound system, engineered to deliver theatre-wide spatial clarity and depth for audiences and performers alike . With the venue’s incredible team of engineers supporting the L-ISA system and on-site production, the show translated the record’s studio concepts into something even larger, communal, and intensely visceral, music experienced as environment, space, and shared physical presence.
“I wanted total immersion: the physical impact of the subs, 360-degree textures in the surround system, and the power of live brass all around you.”
CONTOURS 360º
The album was also realised as a fully immersive online experience through a complete 360º audiovisual version on YouTube. This groundbreaking presentation allows listeners to explore the entire record in spatial sound and interactive visuals, rotating freely within the environment as the music unfolds around them. The animated visual world was created by Alec Jagodzinski, while the detailed 360º spatial mix was crafted by Fellipe Baldauf, translating the album’s studio concepts into a genuinely interactive digital format. Rather than a conventional video, it becomes a living, navigable performance, inviting audiences to step inside the music and experience Contours from any angle they choose.
Watch on YOUTUBE site/app for 360º experience...
“Most records are heard. This one is entered. A fully explorable 360º audiovisual album remains a rare frontier, and Contours set out to push it forward.”
CREDITS
vocals: Rosie Strobel - Zosia Jagodzinska
piano | synths: Dan Samsa
trumpets: Eikel Venegas Hernandez - Adam Chatterton - Charlotte Keeffe
trombones: Raphael Clarkson - Rosie Turton - Yusuf Narcin
drums: Tom Potter - Simon Roth
360º Atmospheres: Jonathan Darbourne - Rosie Strobel - Zosia Jagodzinska - Alison D'Souza
mix engineers: Chris Jarman - Valerio Massucci
recording engineers: Andy Hughes - Fellipe Baldauf
mastering engineer: Matt Colton
composed and produced by Dan Samsa