SAM BLASUCCI - BLACK ROSE - DOUBLEPLAY

Like all of Sam’s music, Black Rose feels like a shapeshifting conduit for poetry and movement. Recorded primarily in the middle of the night, the 10-track album feels distinctly nocturnal—an invitation into shadow, and a darkness that could be groovy. 

The album confronts thresholds between darkness, death, the artificial, and the luminosity of the soul. Sam has created music that sounds like what bioluminescent algae looks like—a dazzling rhythmic tide, a dense sonic bloom, an electric blue wave that bleeds. The lyrics are intimate, existential, sensual, and confronting.

Black Rose was recorded in Ojai, California at DoublePlay Studio, engineered and mixed by Travis Frost, and includes contributions from Mia Wilson (vocals), Andres Renteria (percussion), Randal Fisher (saxophone, aerophone), Rafael Langa (congas), Laena Myers (violin), and “a group of Ojai legends” on group claps for C.I.T.M.

Sam released videos for album single "Creature," a song about the soul, flesh and blood that we have and that we seemingly often forfeit in exchange for acceptance from others or for money or our own misplaced self worth. Sam says, "I think that keeping your creatureness at the top of your mind might open up some new doors that help stitch our hearts closer to the sky rather than digging ourselves deeper underground."

And Sam also dropped the tracks "Possession," which he explains, "people are not crazy or bad or deranged they are just people on a spectrum of rhythm and feeling. Feeling is rhythm and love comes in rhythms and that is what "Possession" is about. It is meant to set a romantic pulse and make people feel free so they can live with some heart and soul."

And lead track "Lovers Only," which is about witnesses. The opposite of tunnel vision but rather absorbing everything around you like your body is an eye. Witnessing something outside of yourself while you are being witnessed too.

Born in Northeast Los Angeles, Blasucci has lived across the U.S. and Mexico, including Coahuila, New Orleans, and Orem, and now finds home in Ojai, California. He learned music from his father as a child and formed Mapache at age 20, releasing 5 albums before launching his solo career in 2023.