MIMS Premiere: Benjamin Samuels "Negra Verdad" (Forthcoming on Worm Discs)

Premiering today on Music Is My Sanctuary, Negra Verdad is a key track from Benjamin Samuels’ forthcoming EP Visions, set for release in 2026 via Worm Discs. Built around a spontaneous recording session in Madrid, the track captures the Australian artist’s approach to composition, rooted in rhythm, shaped by collaboration, and open to influence from across musical traditions. Benjamin Samuels is a Sydney-based saxophonist, clarinetist, producer and composer whose work sits at the intersection of jazz, electronic music and global sounds. His music combines improvisation-led composition with groove-focused production, often bringing together complex rhythmic structures with layered, textural arrangements. He first introduced this approach on his debut album Dissensation (2024, Bridge the Gap), which established his interest in blending intricate rhythmic interplay with immersive, cross-genre sound design. On Visions, Samuels expands that palette further, working with a broader group of international collaborators including Spanish vocalist Rafita de Madrid and trumpeter Grifton Forbes-Amos. Negra Verdad emerged from a chance meeting in Madrid. After being introduced through mutual friends, Samuels and Rafita de Madrid quickly arranged a recording session in a small studio apartment in the Embajadores neighbourhood, engineered by Adriana Terrén. Despite having never worked together before and with limited shared language, the session moved ahead with minimal preparation. Following a brief outline of the track’s shifting time signatures, the pair recorded the piece in a single take. Rafita approached the composition through a flamenco lens, delivering a vocal that both anchored and expanded the track’s direction. The result brings together a range of influences that sit at the core of Samuels’ work. Elements of flamenco intersect with rhythmic and melodic ideas drawn from Turkish, Jewish and Indian musical traditions, not as a constructed fusion but as a natural convergence shaped in the moment of performance. As part of the wider Visions project, Negra Verdad highlights Samuels’ collaborative process, one that prioritises immediacy and responsiveness over extensive planning. The recording stands as a clear example of how his compositions evolve through interaction, with structure providing a framework rather than a fixed outcome. With this premiere, Negra Verdad offers an early insight into the direction of Visions, a project defined by international collaboration, rhythmic exploration, and a continued blurring of boundaries between genres and traditions.