Recreations ‘Baby Boomers 2’
For ten years, Sam Duckworth served as a generation’s acousti-pop pied-piper as Get Cape Wear Cape Fly. It was an alias that served the Southend native well, taking him everywhere from major-label chart-raiding to the frontlines of activism, to live music grassroots and, at one point, a guest spot on Hollyoaks.
But all things must pass, and on September 12, 2014, Sam slashed the Cape, sending his alter-ego plummeting to his death on the floor of London’s Kentish Town Forum while he played a triumphant farewell show and released the final Get Cape album, ‘London Royal’.
Now, Sam is back as Recreations, cheerfully admitting the new moniker Recreations is down to nothing more profound than a deep-seated affection for big-hearted US sitcom Parks and Recreation. (Did you spot the deliberate mistake there? There are few things in life more profound than Parks and Rec). For his rebirth, Sam presents ‘Baby Boomers 2’; a self-produced collection full of wide-eyed, big-dreaming, conscientious pop songs that are undeniably /him/, but delivered with looser funk, crisper electronics and notably less tubs to thump on. In more ways than one, it sees Duckworth get his groove back.
“I always get tagged as being a political musician,” he says, “but most of my songs aren’t political, it’s just that a lot of the stuff I do outside music is. So I wanted to do an album that was sort of both, but didn’t feel like doom and gloom, ‘the world’s going to end’. Maybe lyrically it’s like that in places, ‘shit’s broken and it needs fixing’. But I did a lot of touring, met a lot of people and just thought, ‘what’s the best way for me to appease my creativity and also play the songs I want to play in environments where I can play anywhere and to anyone, easily.”
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