Hear Sam Valdez’s powerfully lonely new single “Clean”

From an as yet untitled new record, due out later this year.

June 25, 2020

Nevada-born, Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Sam Valdez writes the sort of breathy, country-tinted shoegaze that can only come from the West Coast. Her debut EP, 2018's Mirage, was a quietly cinematic throwback to Laurel Canyon rock, but she really leaned into the drama of her voice on "Toothache," released in the spring. Now she's premiering a new song, "Clean," ahead of an as yet untitled EP due later this year. Sparsely produced and unhurried, "Clean" is a powerfully desolate song on which Valdez picks apart the gloomier corners of a troubled relationship.

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"'Clean' is a love song in a way but it’s more about being drawn to self-destruction," Valdez wrote in an email to The FADER. "It’s about finding comfort in uncertainty and appreciating the darker qualities in someone as well as the good."

Listen to "Clean" at the top of the page.

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Thumbnail image: Riley Sieverts.

Hear Sam Valdez’s powerfully lonely new single “Clean”