“I love the intensity, the pitch, the high pitch of cities,” Samson says. “The density and sheer humanity of it all: I like how people are thrown together and forced to live together. That’s exciting to me. Every city has these wonderful, specific quirks about them. I love finding what’s totally original about a city.”

“Cities are a perfect metaphor for larger society. They’re a perfect instrument to think about politics. They have all the greatness and horrors of humans living together,” Samson says. “Thinking about the problems of cities is, to me, a handy way of thinking about bigger problems. Thinking about them on the scale of the street you live on is an easier way to get a handle on them.”

“Alienation has been a main theme of mine forever,” he says, “people trying to communicate with each other is a daunting task in a capitalist society. Music is something that can assist with that.”