Still Come The Summer Rains

New Album from  Ben New

The new release from Ben New, "Still Come The Summer Rains" is a case study in straddling discrete universes.
While under normal conditions, mixing disparate musical influences can certainly lead to unsatisfying or even disappointing results,
sometimes a tangy luscious stew emerges; such is the case here.
There are bits and pieces of many genres floating about in the mix.
The pop sensibilities intermingle with lofty artistic  standards.
The instrumental prowess of progressive rock and jazz mingle with neoclassical melodic elements.
While the lyrical attributes range from romanticism to impressionistic
...from stark emotionless observation to surrealism.
...from the heart to the head and back again
influence bounces from Poe to Brautigan to Hesse to Vonnegut.
It's a feast for the ears.
A movie to watch in the ethereal cinema at the core of consciousness.
CDBaby Album notes say this:

The Interview

G.P. --Tell us about the tracks.
Lets start with track one, "Calling Out". What is this about?

B.N. --Well musically it's a track inspired by Steely Dan as well as Todd Rundgren's work.
Thematically speaking it's a plea for sanity.  A belief that most people are decent. That we want nothing more than to live and let live.
That we need to band together for social justice.
People around the world of good conscience calling out to the self appointed Pharaohs to surrender their crowns and stand down.
It's an underlying theme through a number of tracks.
Stated succinctly on this one.


G.P. -- How about "The Bone Collector", track 2. How did that come about?

B.N. -- That is a very personal song, of all the songs on this album,  this one is tied closest to events in my personal life.
I was very close to my Uncle who lived to be 95 because my mother (his sister) passed away when I was a kid, and he had stepped up and kept an eye on us...anyway at the end of life, the last 5 years my sisters and I took care of him. The first couple years were quite easy really, just looking in on him. But the last 2 were quite challenging as he began to suffer from dementia. Physically he was in good shape until near the end...and then it all went south mercifully quickly.  Anyway, I wrote this song as we were in the process of going through his things after he'd passed on. So it's literally about that experience.  It's not really a sad piece for me,  95 years is beating the odds by quite a bit in my book. We had a great relationship. But goodbyes are never easy. Never.
I have to say this is the only piece on the album that has a bit of melancholia attached to it...and it is the only one that is so directly about my personal experiences in life.
There's a halftime sort of groove there, and the guitars, other than the solo are played finger style which gives them a certain quality. The solo features pick harmonic squeals throughout.
G.P. -- Track three, the title track, what is that about?

B.N. -- I'm not entirely sure!

G.P. -- Why is that?

B.N. -- The music itself evolved from a fairly common banjo roll...the root, 4th, 5th and the octave.  Against that drone I placed the chord progressions.
But I changed the instrumentation, playing the banjo line in the right hand of the electric piano part, which because of the timbre, completely disguises the bluegrass- Jangle pop roots of the music. I think you can hear a  Peter Gabriel influence there as well as Porcupine Tree but it's tempered with  a bit of  Counting Crows  -  T Bone Burnett as well.
I  had finished  the track  instrumentally before writing lyrics . When I got round to writing lyrics, which I usually do in spurts...finding the musical muses and literature muses at odds really; coming from a similar deep well, but entirely different locales in the psyche.  Anyway, I'd just read "As I Lay Dying", a remarkable novel by William Faulkner. I was struck by his use of experimental narrative techniques, as they allowed him to explore the interactions and psychological complexity of his characters  more thoroughly than traditional styles could have ever permitted. I remember re-reading one page in particular several times (which is something I tend to do with really great writing...when something resonates so intensely. I remember doing that a lot with Herman Hesse and Ken Kesey...even Stephen King sometimes). 
I wanted to capture the atmosphere of that page in a song. I borrowed a few words...the unlamped wall, for instance. But it's certainly not a paraphrasing of Faulkner nor is it derived from his story.
Beyond that, when I finally sat down to write the lyric I found "the zone" very easily and the lyrics flowed almost as if they were pre-written and I was merely a scribe copying them. That's sort of one of those magic moments in art really, when you aren't consciously aware of just what it is you are creating yet are driven to create it. I can't fully explain it. But I call it being in the zone. I wish it happened more often.

G.P. -- On "In Times Such As These", the 4th track; what is that unusual guitar sound in the solo at the end of the song?

B.N. -- Well I'm playing a Fender custom shop Tele that's a very detailed recreation of a '59. I'm playing through a Vox amp with the Tony Bruno modifications. which I love...very versatile. But the unusual thing I guess is the tremolo pedal effect. I'm changing how quickly it pulses in real time with my foot as I'm playing. It's something I heard on an Electric Prunes album back in the 60s originally.

G.P. -- Can you shed some light on what this song is about?

B.N. -- It's fairly general. But to me at least, it's an observation. I'd like to think that my lyrics are more like signposts that suggest things to listeners, who then journey where they will, based on their own experiences and observations.  The seeds of this piece lie in recognizing that since the dawn of man, one group or another tries to dominate everyone else.  They coalesce into some form of aristocracy, a hierarchy with themselves at the top. In most of the world, this hierarchy was taken down a few notches in the social upheavals of the 1960s.  Now virtually every effort has been focused into some sort of knee jerk reaction to the 1960s.  We witness the delirium that reigns.

       G.P. -- That brings us to "The House Of Fear". You have said this is your favorite track.  Why?

B.N. -- It is! Today anyway. That seems to change depending on whatever strikes my interest day to day though.
It combines a couple of things, my fondness for classic monster movies as a child, and recognizing how today fear is the currency of the realm.
It's the medium of exchange you see. We excite your fear and in return you surrender civil rights, human dignity, and cash. Thanks for your cooperation! Now you have security.
But you don't. It's like the emporer's new clothes...it doesn't exist. You can never have security. Like the Golden Fleece, it does not exist except in fiction. Ironically most of the nonsense done in the name of security actually only stimulates more insecurity, so it's a loop. A never ending Gordian Knot in your stomach. It's about manipulation ultimately.
I think it's one of the more musically interesting pieces on the album as well.  There's an element of progressive rock in it. Though you needn't be a prog fan to appreciate it.


G.P. -- The Voodoo Bar, track six on the disk. That one seems a little different than the rest of the album.

B.N. -- It is different in many ways I suppose. From early reviews, it seems to be the "single". Many people have said it's their favorite, though I'd have guessed "Calling Out" would have been more the "single" myself. You can't really predict that sort of thing because I never write with any sort of function in mind for a song. Once they are written, I kind of cull them into an album that has some perceived continuity . Sure I know few people buy albums these days, they download songs primarily, but continuity is still very important to me. I certainly CAN, if need be, write music for some specific purpose relying on the craft I've honed over the years. Sometimes I'm called on to do just that...soundtracks for films or writing songs for others to sing.  But my own albums are about creating music I personally want to hear. It's my sincere hope that others will want to hear it as well of course so that I can continue making these albums.  Musically this track draws from modern Latin music, a little bit of hip hop in the drum tracks, and a bit of Pink Floyd atmospherically. The instrumentation is different too, I didn't use an electric guitar at all, just an acoustic track and it's entirely rhythmic. The solo was given to the saxophone. Vocally I suppose I had Leonard Cohen in mind for the verses.  Lyrically speaking it's about an imaginary magic sort of nexus where everyone we like congregates joyfully. It's also about being in the moment completely. No past, no future. People who have impacted your life in any sort of possible manner, whether through their books, their artistry, their personal insights, their love or kindnesses, are all there with no regards to their roles in reality. Some are dead, some are living...It's a place outside reality where anything is possible.  Ultimately it's about freedom...freedom from self. Ego death. That sort of thing. Yes, philosophically speaking I'm something of a Taoist I suppose or maybe what David Eagleman called a possibilian. After all, like Voltaire said, "uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one".
Cheers!

G.P. -- Track 7, "Join The Bozo". That's an interesting title. There are some nice guitar timbres in this one.

B.N. -- Thanks. Yes this was another case of  being in the zone so to speak
...I heard this in my head including  a significant portion of the lyrics completed really.
It was a matter of re-creating what I heard. 
The guitar I used is a Vox  model, really interesting and unique sound...
it has both a chambered body and internal tone bars.
A highly resonant instrument like no other I've ever played.
I saw David Rhodes from Peter Gabriel's band also play one this past summer.
I don't think they made very many.
Join The Bozo is about making bad choices, conformity, and delusion.
To me, it's something I see on all levels and in every one of  our endeavors in life.
A person who accepts one absurdity unfortunately destroys their ability to ever value critical thought again,
they will believe any absurdity.
If you watch the video for this song,
you will see a photo of  a brave man surrounded by a sea of fellow Germans
giving the Nazi salute while he folds his arms in defiance.
The lone man refusing to be caught up in the nationalistic Nazi fervor is August Landmesser. 
The photo was taken in Hamburg, Germany on June 13, 1936.
At that time, the salute- meaning hail victory, was an exhibition of loyalty to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, and it was mandatory for all German citizens.
Landmesser was expelled from the party in 1935, after becoming engaged to a Jewish woman, Irma Eckler.
The couple was engaged to marry, but enactment of the Nuremberg Laws would prevent that from taking place.
The couple’s first daughter was born on October 29, 1935.
Eckler became pregnant again, and the couple decided to flee Nazi Germany for Denmark in 1937,
but they were caught by the Nazis.
Landmesser was subsequently charged with”dishonoring the race” under Nazi race laws.
The couple claimed that neither of them were aware that Eckler was fully Jewish,
They were acquitted for lack of evidence, but with a warning that any subsequent violations would result in prison time.
Even under threat of prison, Landmesser and Eckler’s love reigned supreme,
with the couple publicly continuing their relationship.
In July of 1938, Landmesser was arrested again,
this time being sentenced to two and a half years in the Borgermoor concentration camp.
Eckler was taken by the Gestapo to Fuhlsbuttel prison,
where she gave birth to their second child.
She was sent to numerous concentration camps, 
It’s believed that she was taken to the Bernburg Euthanasia Center in February 1942,
where she was among the more than 14,000 killed. 
Landmesser himself was released from prison
but was forced to serve in a  penal battalion in February of 1944
and was reportedly killed while fighting in Croatia in October of that year.
He refused to join the Bozo, and I dedicate this song to him.
Again, this song has undertones in modern politics. 
The appeal of the angry narcissistic demagogue offering straw men to blame
for the woes of society is not merely something relegated to history.
Though man's capacity to actually learn from historical  mistakes may be.

G.P. --"Take the Biscuit", a straight ahead rock number that is track 8 on your CD is a curious title. What does it mean?

B.N. -- It's a phrase that is used in Britain primarily, it's similar to "take the cake" in the U.S. (which I'm guessing derived from it).  According to the Oxford Dictionary it is a verb, "(idiomatic, Britain) To be particularly bad, objectionable, or egregious."  In the context of my song, it's another social commentary. About aberrant behaviors.
It may well be simply the madness of a dreamer. The undisciplined romantic  ramblings of  some contemporary Don Quixote chasing economic windmills of non-existent equity. The unabridged lunacy of an unhinged escapist incapable of  understanding the need for aristocracy, austerity in public affairs, and the need for society be dominated by a few bastards who claim intrinsic superiority over the rest. Or it may be an honest evaluation. I suppose that's up to the listener.

  G.P. -- "Birds Nest Head", track 9; is an interesting piece, lots of dissonance peppered throughout. I liked the Moog solo and the whole 70s prog vibe.
How did that come about?

B.N. --  Thanks. Yes, well musically I had in mind a certain era of Zappa's band as well as a particular King Crimson line up when I was arranging the music.
The dissonance is largely sharped ninths and sharped 4ths. Jimi Hendrix actually incorporated the sharp ninth in many of his compositions.
There's a lot going on in that piece.  As to the lyrics, there is certainly no shortage of bird brain ideas out there, right? I mean at this point someone stands up amid the chaos and shouts out "I've got a terrible idea", someone else replies "I can make it even worse" and it's plastered everywhere for a media cycle or 2 as the crowd roars with approval.
Then there's the whole "alt-reality" omnibus. You know ... the abundance of chirpys out there that are convinced Elvis is behind gravity, flying monkeys in toasters are creating contrails of sausages, and major league baseball was behind the JFK assassination.  We are in the disinformation age.  Gatorade, it's what plants thrive on!


Birds Nest Head

Swifty was a glozer
upon a horse of air
painting shadow on the ochre
enchanting to despair

With the cannibals of autumn
sanity retreats
It's a voyage to the bottom
in reinforced concrete

There's a hole in your head
Where ravens will roost
There's a hole in your heart
It's yourself you've seduced

join the dupes and charlatans
by the poison well
there's a bargain to be had there
on a putting green in hell

It's the cannibals of autumn
sanity retreats
It's a voyage to the bottom
in reinforced concrete

There's a hole in your head
where birds go to bed
There's a hole in your heart
Where the straw man gets fed
 
It's a morbus mandorla
a web of psychotic beliefs
 infantile delusions
and dogmas of deceit

strychnine in the sugar
beware freaks bearing fangs
Wisemen seek the butcher
Prophets drawing wangs

Magic, lies, and sophistry
 dogma for the small
She prinks her weasel in the dark
hides behind the wall

Fanions in the fusions
cavalry cabal
Makeshift daft delusions
Crayons scribble on the wall

Aviary blowhole babes
jackdaws in your mind
birdnest head charades
can't escape what you design
rancid with infection
born on April fools
She stabs her own reflection
slicing at the pool

There's a hole in your head
Where ravens will roost
There's a hole in your heart
It's yourself you've seduced

There's a hole in your head
where birds go to bed
There's a hole in your heart
Where the straw man gets fed
copyright Ben New 2016

G.P. -- I also liked the way this section of songs meld into each other on the CD. "Tangiers" the 10th track is very pretty sounding, a stark contrast to the song that precedes it.

B.N. -- Yes, well contrast is the first law of art as they say. 
As I mentioned before, song sequence, and how the album works in terms of continuity is still very important to me.
Certainly folks can download a single song that perhaps they like best and that works just fine.
However the experience of listening to the whole album is a very different affair.
I'd like to think it reveals itself in layers.
That it holds up to many repeated listens because there are various layers to focus perceptions on.
In that sense it's quite a bargain for your entertainment dollar. right? 


Tangiers

Upon these bones
we hang our hide
in undertones
we've specified

We deconstruct
the paragon
and run amok
in marathons


The stars will die
without a word
Your deepest sigh
escapes unheard

Though the years have drained the blood
but filled the blistered brow
The yellow viper rides the flood
to feast on here and now

Tangiers will set you free
in tears we find our buoyancy

Though the years have drained the blood
but filled the blistered brow
The yellow viper rides the flood
to feast on here and now

Take the burning train to bean town
Make the ploughman disappear
Leap the lizards in the breakdown
To keep the conscience clear

Take the burning train to bean town
Make the ploughman disappear
Leap the lizards in the breakdown
To keep the conscience clear

Though the years have drained the blood
but filled the blistered brow
The yellow viper rides the flood
to feast on here and now

The time has come
to say goodnight
We've come undone
And lost our sight

The month of June
is half divine
The silver moon
Gone with the wine

Take the flaming flight to Flagstaff
Decorate the gentle curve
Writing wrongs on epitaphs
Kneel before the one you serve
In Tangiers

copyright Ben New 2016


G.P. -- "Pixelated", the 11th track on the album is another interesting piece to my ear, it starts out as rock anthem or pop-rock song but by the end we find ourselves transversing quite a different territory.

B.N. -- Thanks again, that's an astute assessment really.
Like all musicians, I'm often asked to explain or classify the music I've created. 
For some folks this is easy, if you play country pop, or hip hop, or rock and roll,
this is a relatively simple task and it makes the marketing chores easier. 
I have a lot of influences, and all the music I've ever heard and liked in some way informs my style. 
I've described it as meta-pop in the past.
It's a broad term that means "something that functions similarly to pop music". 
2 things remain clear in my memory of childhood.
One is that we all were herded under wooden desks and told this would protect us from atom bombs.
I knew this was absurd even as a 6 year old and have never trusted authority ever since.
The other is that I loved listening to music, all music really.
I wore my parents records thin, and fell asleep every night listening to radio.
There was a lot of diversity on radio back then.
There was folk, blues, soul, rock & roll, hard & soft rock, funk, jazz, symphonic music, Americana, psychedelic, and country all available on numerous stations.
So "pop" music has different connotations for me than someone who grew up later,
after music had been subjugated by corporations and tamed. 
You know, in the 1970s, the music industry was an enormous economic powerhouse;
bringing in more money than all professional sports combined...my, how times have changed.
The diversity of stations was ever changing at night too,
with atmospheric conditions.
Things would come in from far away destinations at times.
Anyway the point is that I think of what I do as rock or pop, but it's filtered through an awful lot of different styles.
I think it's "alternative" but it doesn't have that Seattle sound at all.
And though I can't say it often has that signature "Portland" drum sound that seems to typify the genre,
it is "Indie", as is most all music today, but that's an awfully broad banner isn't it? 
Regardless of what we might call it, here it is.
And this song sort of follows the standard sonata form at first,
with verse, chorus, verse, sections (A theme, B theme, A theme)
it goes off into different themes towards the end...
and it features my favorite guitar solo on the album!
Truly a chainsaw timbre and some glorious madness.
Not always my objective, but I sure enjoy it in context.

G.P. -- There is a lyric in there I am curious about. "Couldn't win the mistress so I wooed the maid". It rings a bell but I can not place it.

B.N. -- I believe there is something vaguely like it in The Merchant Of Venice [Shakespeare].  However I was paraphrasing Alexander Pope,
who said "Who could not win the mistress wooed the maid."   He was suggesting that critics are failed and envious people.
It's an aside. Not truly part of the story, and it wasn't in the original lyrics I had written, but it popped in my head when I was recording the vocals, so I sang it, and left it in at the final mix. It seems to belong for some curious reason. I mean generally the song is about things not being well defined, right? Not being able to discern clearly. Distortion.

 

Pixelated

She's so pixelated

{heavily effected}
Put that drillpress away
Don't let them make you obey

Don't let the effable become you
When the words come without breath
Don't let the bongos bongo drum you
when she tongues kiss of death

The colored lens of cogency
Amplifies the incomplete
We are vagabonds in transit
Through the Siege Of Sidney Street

She's so pixelated
She's so pixelated
indistinct in every way
She is nebulated
confused and far away


Upon this ship of fools
 we hoist this clewless sail
  We abandon Aristotle's rules
    Roaming far beyond the pale

She's so pixelated
indistinct in every way
She is nebulated
confused and far away

The colored lens of cogency
amplifies the incomplete
We are vagabonds in transit
Through the Siege Of Sidney Street

She's so pixelated
She's so pixelated
indistinct in every way

Don't let the effable become you
When the words come without breath
Don't let the bongos bongo drum you
when she tongues kiss of death

All along the water's edge
There's a motion to the sea
How far from our intent have we strayed?
Couldn't win the mistress, so I wooed the maid

She's so pixelated

Don't let the effable become you
When the words come without breath
Don't let the bongos bongo drum you
when she tongues kiss of death

She's so pixelated
indistinct in every way
She is nebulated
confused and far away

The colored lens of cogency
amplifies the incomplete
We are vagabonds in transit
Through the Siege Of Sidney Street

copyright Ben New 2016

G.P. -- Track 12 on the disk is "Fools Gold". What can you tell us about that one?

B.N. -- It's a straight ahead rocker. Musically speaking, it started with that synthesizer line. The song was built around that. 
I had Pete Townsend in mind when I wrote it in terms of  sonics as well as sort of answering his brilliant anthem
"We don't get fooled again"...since we definitely have been fooled again.  The Who was a big influence on me.
It's about delusion, irrationalism, and misbelief. Or should I say escaping from those things... avoiding them.
As Captain Beefheart said in his masterpiece "The Best Batch Yet" - "You might think this is the finest pearl. But it's only cardboard balls!"


Fools Gold

Trade places with the monkey man
Gonna swing from the trees
There's a future in the loin cloth trade
Unless you got the disease

 It's a bums rush
I got the Midas touch
Future's bought and sold
I'm dealing with fools
 in the currency of  fools gold

If we ever get out of this alive
we'll make it to the river
 It's the way to survive
  Pay the ferryman in fools gold
    prophecy and lies

Everybody here is a stranger
don't you look them in the eye
riding shotgun through the danger
all the wells are running dry

If we ever get out of this alive
we'll make it to the river
 It's the way to survive
  Pay the ferryman in fools gold
    prophecy and lies

Fools gold
glitz and glam
Fools gold
it's a scam

Fools gold
In the bogus land
Fools gold
for the Flim Flam Man

It's there in the subtext
Don't read it, just sign
get in line, cause you're next!
Welcome to the decline!

Top dogs are barking orders
race to the bottom of the pit
seal the banks and the borders
Let the hindmost take the hit

If we ever get out of this alive
we'll make it to the river
 It's the only way to survive
Pay the ferryman in fools gold
prophecy and lies

copyrightBen New 2016

G.P. --  The final piece on "Still Come The Summer Rains" is called "Saving Grace".  What can you tell us about that one?

B.N. --  In a way I'd almost like to let that one speak for itself, as I see how people might interpret it differently and that's ok.
To me, it's about trying to rescue someone.
Someone named Grace. 

G.P. -- There is a particular lyric there that caught my ear, "Diana on the hoy".
What does that mean?
B.N. -- Diana, the huntress. She is of course a very ancient diety, dating back at least to the founding of Rome.
Though historians agree she was "adapted" by the Romans from older traditions.
Anyway, this is the Diana I was referencing in the song.
"On the hoy"  is slang expression used primarily in northern England.
It means "on a bender", or inebiriated.
So it's an obscure  expression, but it sounds more interesting and rhymes better than
saying "a drunk female diety from antiquity".




Saving Grace

Collected clouds in jars like souvenirs
merit measured in currencies of tears
reflected shrouds in eyes of sombre pioneers
sorrows dimming in parades of years

Trying to replace
the magic rod
I am saving Grace
Grace from god

Bring a lily pale
walk with me
Aloft the ravens sail
let us be

Maundering in the materia of madness
foraging for random joy
Pontoons on the chasm of existence
Guardians of Diana on the hoy


Trying to replace
the magic rod
I am saving Grace
Grace from god

Bring a lily pale
walk with me
Aloft the ravens sail
let us be

These fantasies are fatal
The narrows are unstable
Take the detour now!

emancipated from the theater of absurdity
from omens and auspices I escaped unstained
the stage is set,  the props are placed
Honey baited bear traps and kindness feigned

Trying to replace
the magic rod
I am saving Grace
Grace from god

Bring a lily pale
walk with me
Aloft the ravens sail
let us be

These fantasies are fatal
The narrows are unstable
Take the detour now!


copyright Ben New 2016

G.P.-- Thanks for stopping by the studio Ben and best of luck with the new album.
Where can people find it?
B.N. -- Thanks for having me Gavin, and thanks to everyone listening out there!
You can find "Still Come The Summer Rains" most anywhere music is sold.
CD Baby, Amazon, AmazonUK, iTunes, etc.
And you will also find it available for streaming at places like Google Play or Spotify.






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