Sam Macdonald steps out alone with “Distant Light”
09 October 2025
Marco Gandolfi
Northern singer-songwriter Sam Macdonald releases his debut solo single “Distant Light”, a melodic and off-kilter blend of rock, pop and soul.
Born and raised in Carlisle, Macdonald grew up surrounded by music. From an early age, he absorbed Buddy Holly and his dad’s 50s and 60s cassette tapes, before discovering the wave of Scouse and Northern bands that shaped his taste (The La’s, The Coral, Shack, Echo & the Bunnymen, Oasis, The Stone Roses) alongside timeless artists such as Neil Young, R.E.M., Teenage Fanclub, The Rolling Stones, and the pulse of Motown. Hip hop’s melodic edge also left a mark, giving his songwriting an instinct for rhythm as much as melody.
“Distant Light” takes those influences and filters them through a sharper, more personal lens while lyrically, it carries a thread of searching for escape, for change, for something beyond the moment.
“I have learned a lot about what I want to make. This is a movement towards something that is not driven by trying to appease other people’s ideas of what is right and wrong”, says Macdonald. “The basslines, the drums and everything else is all at my direction. The make-up of everything, audio, visual is all driven by myself.”
Where past projects thrived on collaboration, Macdonald emphasises that this new chapter is defined by independence. Indeed, this first solo release is deliberately different: shorter, poppier music with a warped, alternative edge.
Macdonald sums up his solo approach with a simple philosophy: “Rarely is anything set in stone or black and white I think is certainly one thing. And making the most of what is right for you in an artistic sense, staying true to yourself.”
