Process is Sampha's intimate second album, constructed around sparse piano and minimal electronic production in the years surrounding his mother's death from cancer. Engineered largely by Sampha himself at home and XL Studios in London, the record channels liturgical and gospel sensibilities through unflinching arrangements that prioritize emotional immediacy over conventional collaboration. Essential for listeners drawn to introspective, emotionally direct contemporary soul and electronic music.
⚡ Quick Answer: Process is Sampha's intimate album of grief, recorded following his mother's death from cancer. Built around sparse piano and minimal production by Rodaidh McDonald, the record channels liturgical influences and gospel sensibilities through electronic arrangements. Sampha engineered much of it himself at home and XL Studios in London, creating an unflinching emotional document that prioritizes feeling over collaboration.
If you spent this morning with Låpsley — with the grey light and the slow beats and that feeling of someone handing you their journal — then Process is the record you put on tonight when the house is finally quiet.
Sampha%20Sisay">Sampha Sisay made this album in the years surrounding his mother’s death from cancer. That’s not context you apply from the outside. It’s the album itself, cellular, inseparable from every note he plays and every syllable he sings. You feel it the way you feel a change in air pressure.
The Piano in the Room
The piano is the spine of Process, and Sampha plays it with the kind of touch that makes you wonder whether he learned or just always knew. He grew up in Morden, South London, in a house where his mother played. That upright in the living room becomes almost a character here — most explicitly on “(No One Knows Me) Like the Piano,” which is as nakedly beautiful as British music got that decade.
The record was made across several studios, primarily at Sampha’s own home setup and at XL’s facilities in London, with mixing handled by Rodaidh McDonald — the same producer and mixer who shaped records by The xx and King Krule, someone with a specific understanding of how much air a low-end electronic arrangement needs to breathe. The spare drum programming, the way bass sits just below the threshold, the reverb that never overwhelms — that’s McDonald knowing when not to touch something.
It’s also worth saying: Sampha engineered much of this himself. That matters. The intimacy isn’t performed. It’s a man alone with his grief and his instruments at two in the morning, and the microphone placement reflects that.
The Thread from This Morning
If Låpsley’s Long Way Home felt like dispatches from someone processing distance and longing through electronic architecture, Process is the closer, warmer cousin — more piano, more liturgical, more willing to crack open completely. Holly Fletcher and Sampha occupy similar emotional coordinates: young British artists using minimalist production not as aesthetic choice but as emotional necessity. Strip away the excess and you can hear the feeling better. Both records understand that.
Where Låpsley tends toward the glacial, Sampha runs warmer. There’s gospel underneath Process — he’s said as much, and you hear it in how his falsetto reaches upward on “Timmy’s Prayer” and “Under.” These aren’t club tracks that softened. They’re something closer to hymns that let a 808 into the room.
Guest credits here are minimal, which is the point. Sampha plays most of what you hear. Lianne La Havas contributed backing vocals on one session. The record resists the collaborative impulse that defines so much of the London scene he came out of — he’d toured with Jessie Ware, written with Drake and Solange and Kanye, absorbed all of it, then retreated to make something no one else could have made.
What Sticks
“Blood on Me” will surprise you if you arrive expecting only fragility. The bass is physical, the paranoia is real, and Sampha sounds genuinely frightened in a way that few R&B records allow. It’s the one moment where Process stops being quiet.
Then “Incomplete Kisses” brings you back down. Then “Kora Sings” closes the whole thing with Sampha returning to his Guinean roots — his father’s instrument, the kora, threaded into the final breath of an album that was always about inheritance and loss and what we carry forward.
Put it on now. The kid is in bed. You’ve earned the hour.
Further Reading
🎵 Key Takeaways
- 🎹 Process is built around sparse piano and minimal electronic production by Rodaidh McDonald, with Sampha engineering much of it himself at home and XL Studios—the intimacy is structural, not performed.
- 💔 The album is an unflinching document of grief following Sampha's mother's death from cancer, channeling liturgical and gospel influences through falsetto and restrained arrangements rather than collaboration.
- ⚠️ 'Blood on Me' breaks the album's quiet spell with genuinely frightened vocals and physical bass, the one moment where Process abandons its fragility.
- 🥁 The record resists the collaborative impulse of the London scene Sampha emerged from—after touring with Jessie Ware and writing for Drake, Solange, and Kanye, he retreated to make something only he could make.
What is the production approach on Process and who produced it?
Rodaidh McDonald mixed and shaped the production philosophy, bringing the same restrained sensibility he applied to The xx and King Kreel. Sampha engineered much of the album himself across his home setup and XL Studios in London, with sparse drum programming and bass that sits deliberately low in the mix to preserve intimacy.
How does Process relate to Sampha's earlier work and collaborations?
After touring with Jessie Ware and writing with Drake, Solange, and Kanye, Sampha deliberately stepped away from the collaborative London scene to make this deeply personal record. The minimal guest credits (Lianne La Havas on backing vocals only) reflect his choice to play most instruments himself rather than rely on the session network that defined his earlier path.
What's the connection to Sampha's background and the album's closing?
'Kora Sings' closes Process by returning to Sampha's Guinean roots—his father's kora instrument threads into the final track, making inheritance and cultural legacy inseparable from the grief documented throughout. The album's structure moves from the piano of his South London childhood to the instruments of his family's heritage.
How does Process compare to similar minimalist records like Låpsley's Long Way Home?
Both use minimal production as emotional necessity rather than aesthetic choice, but Sampha runs warmer with gospel undertones and liturgical sensibility, while Låpsley tends toward the glacial. Process strips away excess to reveal feeling more directly, with piano and falsetto reaching upward where electronic distance might dominate.
Further Reading
Further Reading