The Vernon Spring

Under a Familiar Sun is the new album from The Vernon Spring, the solo project of British composer and producer Sam Beste. Over twelve elegant, empathetic songs, Beste wades into parallel yet opposing dimensions of family devotion and global responsibility in an age of moral uncertainty. Beste’s stunning compositions illuminate a graceful and deliberate approach to piano, accented by brave vocal collaborations, spoken word, and a holistic fusion of electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Under a Familiar Sun represents an evolutionary leap for The Vernon Spring, rippling into an ethereal unknown.

Growing up in North London, Beste was shaped by early exposure to soul, jazz, and avant-garde music via his father’s eclectic record collection. These influences sparked a path of sonic exploration, and a transformative piano lesson at age eleven set Beste in a pivotal direction, instilling a passion for improvisation that shaped his musical trajectory. By his mid-teens, Beste’s dedication and talent placed him in Amy Winehouse’s orbit, whom he accompanied as her live pianist for the majority of her ascendent career.

While writing and releasing music with the boundary pushing alt-soul outfit Hejira through his twenties, Beste helped form the Lima Limo collective and label, which offered a supportive community and inspiring creative foundation. By 2019, he began making solo music as The Vernon Spring, developing a distinctive voice that coalesced his jazz background with contemporary electronic production, and self-releasing his debut album A Plane Over Woods in 2021 and a follow up EP Earth, On A Good Day in 2022, both organically finding a devoted audience.

Under a Familiar Sun offers both a distillation and amplification of The Vernon Spring’s artistic vision. At its core, the album is dedicated to Beste’s partner and three sons, but the tracks stretch beyond familial threads, contemplating moral and existential uncertainties. This tension is established early in the album with “The Breadline,” which initiates a conceptual invitation for listeners, and features poetry from writer Max Porter whose words invoke a vital call: “We might unsound this curse … Lend me your spirit. In Pieces.” Beste and Porter’s collaboration, which emerged from email exchanges about the disconnect between personal experience and the suffering of others, addresses the moral voids in contemporary political leadership.

Throughout the record, Beste oscillates between intimate and universal themes, building sonic spaces where intersecting realities resonate far beyond the music itself. Each track traces a vivid outline of devotional presence, weaving sparse yet evocative lyricism and incantatory melodies that reveal the album’s core magic. Under a Familiar Sun opens a portal for connectedness to self, other, and a broader consciousness. “The album is a love letter to my nuclear family,” he says, “but I’m also asking how that love relates to the wider world. Art does not have to be political to open up a politicism. This is a hopeful record.”

The album resides in Beste’s world of breathtaking piano work which has shaped collaborations with artists including MF DOOM, Kendrick Lamar producer Sounwave, and Joy Crookes, but stretches to unheard sound fields with co-production by Iko Niche. Working alongside Niche set an adventurous tone for the artist, pushing the project into surprising sonic terrain. Under a Familiar Sun radiates further with purposeful collaboration, manifested in cellist Kate Ellis’s improvised string arrangements and contributions from Brooklyn-based vocalist, producer, and astrophysics PhD candidate aden, whose songwriting and performances add transfixing dimensions to the album’s majestic spill.

The recording of Under a Familiar Sun represented a shift in Beste’s creative approach, yielding a more intricate production process. Where earlier works often came to fruition in single-day sessions, Under a Familiar Sun was refined and revisioned over rounds of melodic and structural overhauls. Jazz, hip-hop, and ambient influences blend with 808 punctuations and carefully chosen samples from Beste’s past: “I’m ‘playing memories,’ field recordings of my own past—sometimes my kids, sometimes unused bits of music from years ago,” he shares. The end result is, as Beste describes “something that contemplated the interconnected nature of the micro and the macro, the personal and the political.”

Under a Familiar Sun gained its title from a lyric that grew beyond its initial context to illuminate the album’s key themes. It unspools contradictions of perception—how experience can be both relatable and alien, how the intimate transcends immediate proximities towards global consciousness. These layers reflect the record’s essence: an intimate family portrait that unfolds to prescient visions, and broader meditations on transformation in uncertain times.

The Vernon Spring’s Under a Familiar Sun will be released on vinyl, Japanese import CD, and digital editions on May 9, 2025 via RVNG Intl., OPIA, and Inpartmaint.