Lying in the heat of your arms

Songwriter Samantha West surrounded herself with music from a very young age, learning music theory on piano as a child. After moving to NYC she started playing drums in various bands in the rock scene. Several years later, Samantha decided it was time to step away from that as she entered a time of deep self reflection in her life. Eventually, she followed the resonance that accompanied learning to chant. Things started happening on a cellular level and only grew from there. After finding an old parlor guitar in her grandfather's cellar, she began to teach herself to play. Three years later, Samantha started discovering different ways to record her music and it opened up a whole new world for her. She began recording day in and day out for 12 hour stretches at a time. It was shortly after that Tiger West was born.

As Samantha puts it, "The way I record is pretty idiosyncratic. Not only the equipment and the instruments, which are often quite unconventional (and top secret, like the percussion on “Ship Off”), but also the way I approach the process of recording and mixing. When I’m in the recording studio, each sound, each instrument is like its own little creature. It’s outside and a bit beyond me. It becomes a being unto itself. As much as it’s me creating these songs, I also listen to the creatures as they speak to me. They can be hungry or thirsty, wild and wily, sometimes they want to play or go for a swim, sometimes they’re too loud and rambunctious, getting a little too carried away, and need to be quieted."

Tiger West is currently booking shows in Manhattan and Brooklyn, and is hoping to set up a small tour for the near future. She is also planning to release a music video for the upcoming "Boyhood" single. The video will be the first of a two part series that engages the subject of gender, bodies, and identities.