SAMBORSKI release Sea Wolves 

May 22nd, 2026

After 2 decades of playing her songs mostly solo, Andrea Samborski joined forces with Andy Hider (bass /guitars) & Giacun Schmid (drums / guitars / ambient effects) - both multi-talents and the luthier dreamteam behind Magneton Guitars - to record SAMBORSKI’s Sea Wolves EP at the Guitar Barn (guitar workshop, showroom & stage in Oberwil, Switzerland).  The result is four songs (by a trio two thirds’ luthiers - all electric guitars in the recordings handmade by Andy & Giacun) in far more layered versions than Andrea has shared in her solo work to date. 

The Basel-based Vancouver Islander’s songwriting is visceral and poetic, her voicing - direct from the marrow. Her previous EP Before the Walls Fell was recorded in Scotland over a two-day tête-à-tête with Tim Matthew (with additional vocals later added by Floortje Robertson Matthew). Aside from placement on the Swiss music platform Mx3, she has made this solo EP available exclusively in physical form at live shows or by direct request to date (though it might become more digitally available in 2026). It’s through this live connection where Andrea feels her work most resonates.

And now a less fragile work. An experiment of sorts, for Andrea, whose vocal nuances and textures usually hover amidst just her acoustic guitar-picking and the space of silence. Now new sounds enter, fill spaces, and her very personal timing is harnessed within more structure (“…an unnatural feeling for me, but - trying something new”, she says).

What sparked these band versions? 
The short version: Andrea was invited to play a castle’s annual concert and told “Bring two musicians with you”. And so, while they were all overlapping at the creative space of the Guitar Barn (Magneton’s birthing house) with the lads building guitars and Andrea working on a book, she asked Andy Hidber (of Sonic Scientists / Dreampilot / Sapphire / Wilde / TAY/SON) and Giacun Schmid (of Giacun & collaborations with Vic Hofstetter, Anna Aaron, Dänu Siegrist, Jenny Jans, Oliver Joliat, Pyro, LOAD) if they wanted to join her in playing the concert. A double yes was the answer. 

And so, in the cocoon of that space, surrounded by a myriad of stunningly handcrafted guitars, the three explored the songs together “weaving them new nests, furs and feathers”. From bare-boned skeletons once sung solo, the songs morphed into other versions of themselves - draped in layers, moving through new mood-rooms. From these sessions, the project SAMBORSKI was born.

With a setlist prepared à trois, off they went to storm the castle - along with sound engineer Stefan Reinhardt (who also had a workspace at the Guitar Barn, and with whom Andrea had worked for years at a former music venue where he live-mixed the artists she invited). They played the castle, and then got swallowed up in their individual lives again. 

Six weeks later, at a Project Wrap dinner, they learned they’d all missed creating together. Enter the idea of recording an EP at the Guitar Barn, engineered by Stefan Reinhardt (who’d mixed SAMBORSKI’s very first concert in CastleLand). They made a point of recording Andrea’s voice before a surgery that would leave her unable to sing for an unknown amount of time. The songs later went for mixing to Darren Hayne, Basel’s Australian audio engineer long embedded in Switzerland’s music landscape.

RELEASE:

Each track has been released as a single. The complete EP is out May 22nd, 2026 and available on CD and vinyl - and newly for Andrea: via streaming.

The vinyl has something additional: 2 Sides, 2 Mixes: Side A with Darren’s mixes (as released on streaming & CD). Side B with Stefan’s mixes. It represents an arc of time as the songs moved through hands, and underwent different decisions: Different beginnings, different endings, even some different in-betweens - a process that was at times rocky, and stalled longer than foreseen, but ultimately came full circle on the actual circle of a vinyl. 

Just one song – “Blood & Moon” – will have both mixes available via streaming. Stefan Reinhardt’s other three mixes can be heard exclusively via the vinyl. “We like that you have to take the physical object in your hands, and turn it over to hear another version. No fast-zapping back and forth between alternates. It’s not about comparing them, rather taking in each side as a whole.”

THE SONGS:

Rooted in both Canada and Switzerland, the songs play out between ocean and mountains. The EP opens with “Blood & Moon” - “a song of hope…I wanted it to feel like someone wrapping a warm blanket around your shoulders”, says Andrea. 

“Zervreila (Cut Flowers)” she wrote in the remote valley of Vals, Graubünden, Switzerland. “During lockdown, I found myself with an entire guesthouse to myself for some days, so I wandered the floors and wrote a song for each of its four guestrooms. I sat in each room imagining what could have happened there, and I ‘watermarked’ each song with a specific from its room; this one’s was the William Morris wallpaper.” The song is named after the Zervreila Room which takes its name from the Zervreilahorn mountain close by. 

“Ophelia” expresses “the power we have when we come together en masse and say no to injustice. I had this image of ghosts, spirits of people wronged, and the living - us - moving together toward spaces, landscapes, homes where these injustices happened and are happening, and restoring balance…This image of a sea of these people returning - with more people this time…resolute, a kind of euphoric battle cry…There’s a joy in it because there’s a knowing that oppression cannot last, and so essentially - in this knowing - the oppression is already over…” 

The EP closes with its title track “Sea Wolves” – alluding to the wolves that roam the coastal rainforests and Pacific waters of Vancouver Island. “Strong swimmers, enigmatic, they live elusively amid the mists ever-unfolding above the beaches, from sea to cedars. Paw prints in the sand. A body in the water. In the forest. For me they literally, physically embody my home of ancient rainforests on ocean’s edge - my natural habitat, where the animal part of me will always be from…where my own bones were grown, nourished through lungs of sand, salt, shell and cedar.”

ARTWORK & DESIGN:

The EP’s Graphic Design was realised by Andy Hidber’s own design studio Accent Graphe (located in a former silk ribbon weaving factory from the 19th century. {Silk ribbon weaving was brought to Basel in the 16th century by emigrants fleeing religious persecution in Italy and France}). Andy’s design work wraps a myriad of Basel’s cultural institutions and creations: books, music & museums. (He also designed Andrea’s previous EP "Before The Walls Fell".) 

With the Sea Wolves EP, they almost switched to making a book instead of CD & vinyl. “I went to Andy’s atelier to talk about the graphic design…and suddenly we were going through all these gorgeous books he’d designed, and I just sat there running my fingers over linen book covers embossed with metallics…thinking of how beautiful a book of lyrics and photos would be – with access to the songs tucked somewhere in there…” 
In the end, they reverted to the original plan for physical sound carriers. (The book idea remains bookmarked for future.)

The Inner Photo (band photo) is by Marianna Bell. The castle had called needing a “band pic” for the promo for that first concert. “Being an ‘accidental band’, we had no band pic”. Andrea made a call to friends Gordon & Marianna Bell, both photographers - one analogue, the other digital - who popped by the barn and snapped some shots. “This one wasn’t actually part of the shoot…rather a moment in between. It captures The Feel.”

The Cover Photo is by Greg Samborski, Andrea’s brother, taken on Vancouver Island during a return to a remote beach for their mother’s birthday – a beach they and their sister all crawled upon before they could walk. (It’s also where Andrea recorded the waves and winds heard on this EP.)
“I first ‘walked’ that beach within my mother…And when I become ash, it’s where I want to be left - scattered from those beaches into the Pacific. Turns out my Mom says the same about herself, so I guess we’ll eventually hang out there in the winds together.” 

Along with the wolves.

CREDITS:

Andrea Samborski: voice
Andy Hidber: guitars / basses / unacorda / voice
Giacun Schmid: drums / guitars / ambient effects / synth / voice
Vancouver Island, Canada: waves & winds

Recorded by Stefan Reinhardt at the Guitar Barn, Switzerland
Mixed & Mastered by Darren Hayne

All songs written by Andrea Samborski.
All electric & bass guitars built by Andy Hidber & Giacun Schmid of Magneton Guitars.  


EP Cover Photo by Greg Samborski, Vancouver Island, Canada
Inner Band Photo by Marianna Bell at the Guitar Barn Oberwil

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The artists would like to express their gratitude to Musikbüro Basel for the generous RSC grant, without which this project would never have been finished and birthed into the physical. 
Andrea expresses deep gratitude to Musikbüro Basel for their generous patience while this project travailed tricky terrain.

SAMBORSKI’s music can be found on Bandcamp, Mx3, and streaming platforms (excluding Spotify, Amazon & TikTok). 
Vinyl and CDs can be ordered directly via Andrea.
Andrea Samborski’s solo recordings can currently be found on Mx3. Physical copies can be ordered directly from her via: info@andreasamborski.com