Listen: Samantha Crain Unveils New Album ‘Gumshoe’ with “Dart”

Photo Credit: Sequoia Ziff

Samantha Crain has returned to announce Gumshoe, her long-awaited seventh studio album. Set to release on May 2 via Real Kind records, Crain’s forthcoming record arrives as her first full-length offering since 2020’s massively acclaimed A Small Death and continues her first string of new studio cuts since her 2021 EP I Guess We Live Here Now. To accompany her announcement, the singer-songwriter has shared the album’s third preview single, “Dart.” 

“Gumshoe is an album about my lifelong obsession with solving problems, uncovering mysteries, finding answers, observing people, discovering myself, and understanding difficulties,” Crain reflects in a release. “If there is one instinct that has activated almost every decision and movement in my recalled life, it has been curiosity. I harbor the inclination of investigation and inquisitiveness so deeply that I can’t think of another trait that I have a greater inclination towards. It has taken me on some profoundly far-flung detours but has also led me to some invigorating and preeminent Acumen.”

Crain’s inquisitive nature is apparent on “Dart,” which trains the artist’s perceptive eye on the projection that can charge emotional distance. In verses closely hemmed from glints of detail, she spies on elusive emotions, finding an allure in unknowing and real feelings in imagined chemistry. Her vocal delivery is deep and ardent, then freely impassioned at the hook, amounting to an affecting and thought-provoking introduction to Gumshoe.

“I realize a large part of the reason why I write songs is because I have all these observations about people (and myself) as I try my best to understand them (and me),” Crain continues. “The writing of the songs helps me to summarize what I’m learning and observing… I’m a writer that thinks and builds more than feels when I’m writing usually. But then, when the song is written, the emotional part can come to the surface in the performance, in the singing….singing makes all the thinking part of me disappear.”

“Dart” follows the carefully balanced grit and wit of “Ridin’ Out The Storm” and the propulsive “Dragonfly,” which earned a shoutout from Iggy Pop on his BBC6 Radio program. Shortly after releasing Gumshoe, Crain will take her new songs to the stage with a cross-country tour, passing through every region of the US from May 9 to July 31. Standouts within this run include a home-state kickoff at Saint Cecilia’s in Tulsa, Okla. and Resonant Head in Oklahoma City, performances in Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Nashville, Tenn., Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Brooklyn, N.Y., Northampton, Mass., Toronto, Ontario and a finale at George’s Majestic in Fayetteville, Ark. For tickets and more information, visit samanthacrain.com.

“This album is an acceptance of my observational, thinking nature and creative practice,” Crain shares in closing. “It’s an acceptance because I know that it is not all, it’s not the only way in which I express myself. I know that my curiosity, my desire to solve problems, my inclinations towards research, that gumshoe in me, is the reason why I keep writing songs. That gumshoe in me is the reason I can find my emotive side, my imaginative side, my musical side.”

Gumshoe is available to pre-order and pre-save now. Stream “Dart” here, and watch the official music video below.

Read on for the full tracklist from Gumshoe.

Gumshoe – Samantha Crain:

1. Dragonfly

2. Neptune Baby

3. Dart

4. Ridin’ Out The Storm

5. Gumshoe

6. Fool’s Paradise

7. B-Attitudes

8. Trap Door

9. Melatonin

10. Boilermaker

11. Old Hallicrafter Radio