Viewshed is a poignant and expansive exploration of fractured landscapes—both environmental and emotional. Drawing on his dual background in music and landscape architecture, Samuel Webb crafts compositions that feel spatial, inviting listeners to journey through textured soundscapes shaped by memory, loss, and climatic transformation.

Built on a foundation of piano and double bass, Samuel’s intricate arrangements are punctuated by atmospheric percussion from Christopher Bear (Grizzly Bear) and Beth Goodfellow (Julia Holter, Iron and Wine). Samuel’s string arrangements—recorded across Melbourne and Los Angeles—glide and rupture, shaping the emotional topography of each track.

Rooted in the hypnotic structures of American minimalism (Steve Reich, Philip Glass), the narrative depth of German Lieder, and the immersive atmosphere of film composers like Carter Burwell (Fargo) and Bernard Herrmann (Taxi Driver), Viewshed sits at the intersection of song and score. Samuel composed and arranged all the music, collaborating closely with Bear and Goodfellow to paint geology and weather with the percussive strokes.

The album maps disjointed terrains through the lens of deeply human experience. Opening with “Days”, a meditation on drought, longing, and the psychological toll of climate instability. Strings and piano combine in a haunting portrait of a drought-stricken farmer in California’s Central Valley. Samuel and Christopher Bear built a minimal baseline that counts off a steady rhythm like a rancher pacing a field. Thunderous swells suggest the yearning for rain that never comes.

Samuel’s compositions capture emotional landscapes that exist but go unnoticed in the world around us. With “Mouth” he documents the drifting, hypnotic exploration of the blurred boundary between land and sea. Allegorical in nature, the track follows a character walking along the coast. Samuel’s string arrangements and fluid vocal phrasing mimic the natural rhythms of surf and swell, while the lyrics spiral between clarity and surrealism.

Developed in collaboration with percussionist Beth Goodfellow, the track is driven by a pulsing groove that propels the listener forward, echoing the tide’s relentless pull. The rhythm recurs and intensifies, amplifying key moments in the narrative: moments of confusion, surrender, and submersion. Ultimately, “Mouth” is both meditative and volatile—an immersive study of internal tides, and what happens when we follow them too far out.

Viewshed draws from Samuel’s personal history and upbringing in rural Australia. “Exquisite Corpse,” for example, evokes childhood memories of a broken landscape behind his grandmother’s house in Victoria’s Western District. Set against the backdrop of a former rifle range, the song captures with vivid lyrics and a slow-building structure the quiet tension of observing a place marked by disconnection—scattered buckshot, invasive species, and the remnants of a once-flowing creek. The composition mirrors the openness and fragmentation of the setting: long, airy phrases, restrained instrumentation, and subtle sonic textures.

By asking listeners to journey through the ache of environmental and personal loss, Viewshed’s lush and at times dissonant compositions remind us that however flawed, fractured, or forgotten, beauty persists—even in the dry, dappled cracks.