Opening with a minute of avant-garde fizzing and moogy widdling, like a gateway to a lo-fi pop bliss-out, Blackpool’s Benjamin Shaw peeps his head through the vortex with acoustic guitar in tow and handful of charismatic hymnals to tickle your listening lobes. There’s a lot to love here, and despite the lo-fi declarations nothing sounds unfocussed or slap-dash, quite the opposite in fact as Shaw comes across like the shy-type come good, confident and confessional, full of cheek and charm and most adoringly self-depreciative, not least on ‘When I Fell Over in the City’ with lines like, “there’s a fine line between talented and me”.
Shaw doesn’t shy away from idiosyncrasies, look no further than the sonic-electric-blanket that is ‘12,000 Sentinels’, a feel-good-feel-weird ditty, humorous and quirky but with its tongue firmly in cheek or EP highlight ‘Chocolate Girl’ which plays out like Jason Pierce on a budget – in the most positive fashion – as Shaw manages to pull some emotional punches that nowadays Mr. Pierce would have to employ a plethora of opera singers and full blown orchestra to muster.
It is often said that bands and artists struggle to capture the essence of their songs when forced to reproduce them in plush, watch-the-clock studios so it’s to this EP’s benefit that these songs sound like they’ve been incubated slowly and to perfection, even if it was with a broken stove and an old tin pot, it may be a delicacy but it couldn’t be more appetising.
- Monoganon - 28 October 2013
- Randan Discotheque - 1 February 2013
- The Voluntary Butler Scheme - 4 August 2011