When the world came to a standstill, Sam Himself happened to be in his home country of Switzerland. The indie-rocker is now US-based, but this Buzzsession finds him tucked away on rural Swizz streets, where the day melts into night as people watch silently from their windows. Sam breaks the silence with his deep, rich vocals and reminds us of the beauty that exists even during the darkest times.

His stripped-back cover of “Dancing in the Dark” by Bruce Springsteen is all at once both somber and optimistic, much as how Springsteen meant the song to be understood. Sam performs alone in an empty room decorated only by wallpaper and his own music equipment. Flashes of quiet pleasures like cooking and smoking seem to capture what has filled his days since quarantine. The tinge of hopefulness Sam attaches to the line, “can’t start a fire worried about your little world falling apart,” brings a reminder that, although it may be bleak right now, we must hold on to what is still good in the world. Small acts of human empathy shine bright; an apt example of this is Sam’s little brother bringing him by groceries just before a haunting performance of his new single “Slow Drugs.” As Sam sings of strange times and the process of finding yourself in the chaos, we follow him as he wanders the streets of a quaint town, where beauty still remains even as the world spins into the unknown.