English musician Ben Blake creates “Post-something. Bedroom dream pop meets shoegaze meets waves of fuzz”. Blake recently released a beautiful track called “Anodyne” along with a live E.P. and a batch of demos called “Pull Away Feathers” which you can check out here.
I caught up with Ben to talk about his early musical experiences, how he started playing music and the making of the recent recordings.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Ben-One of my first musical memories is listening to the Talking Heads – Stop Making Sense live album. I had an odd moment at 13 or 14 when I re -heard that LP but somehow knew almost the words and was singing along. My parents’ admitted to playing it a lot when I was a lot younger; I had internalised the songs somehow. The next formative memory I hold strongly is listening to David Bowie’s album Diamond Dogs and the Live at Hammersmith Apollo album. The Mick Ronson guitar solo from Width of a Circle is the sole reason that I got into playing guitar – it was transcendental and really piqued my interest. As someone who had ‘classical’ training initially, this album and the performances were hugely influential and expanded my horizons to encompass rock and alternative music as a whole. My fascination with Bowie led to NIN and then to progressive music – my journey into shoegaze and post-rock came a lot later. I did not have the normal route to modern music but always appreciated the classical composers Liszt, Grieg and Berlioz.
CMM-When did you start playing music and writing songs?
Ben-As I mentioned, I had a classical start, with violin and viola being my first instruments. I have played them since six years old and I was part of local orchestral groups growing up in my home town. After I started to self-teach guitar at 15, I worked my way through a David Bowie songbook and performed these to my unwilling friends. There was no songwriting for a long, long time as my fear of failure and perfectionism was too great. In my late 20s, I became part of the local open mic circuit in Cambridge, UK where I was inspired to start writing my own songs. Only one track survives from then and I never perform it, but it crystallises the memories and emotional state for me into something digestible. Following the pandemic, I got into a rut and had some mental health issues from which a counsellor suggested songwriting as an escape route. This, plus falling in with a fantastic local sound engineer, was the catalyst for starting to write all of the songs on the demos EP and my live EP. From January 2023, I was jamming with another friend to try and generate a band but due to adult life and mad work schedules, this didn’t work out. I kept the songs and the friendship but it was too tricky to continue playing together, meaning I resolved to go solo for a time. I am slowly continuing to write more songs in my spare time but these come in dribs and drabs.
CMM-You recently released a demo called “Pull Away Feathers”. What was the writing and recording process for those songs like and what gear and instruments did you use during the sessions?
Ben-Most of the songs on the demo EP are a result of an emotionally turbulent time and were cathartic to put to paper. I have written lyrics based on memories but making heavy use of metaphor to slightly anonymise things and to distance the rawness of the emotions associated with them. Some of the melodies and riffs are years old (Hollow Heaven’s descending pattern is from around 15 years ago but repurposed) but others were more instant. I tend to agonise over lyrics but some of them again came together quickly. Intertwine and What I Said were penned in an afternoon, with me recording the lyrics and melody while walking my dog. Anodyne’s melody and riff were worked on with a friend before the lyrics completely changed direction. I scrapped the vocal melody and lyrics at least four times as I am a bit of a perfectionist and overly self-critical (working on this!).
I am very lucky that my cousin is a fantastic recording engineer who did the demo work gratis. We set aside a few hours to capture these songs, recorded live. Original intention was to do 7 but we sorted five in a day. His recording room is rather small, meaning that we had to keep volume on the lower end, and to reduce the saturation of guitar signals but in three hours we recorded all of the demos. He has a huge microphone collection but an SM57 was chosen as the best vocal solution and a pair of Neumann mics caught both amps. I find it hard to do vocals without a reference pitch from other instruments so the guitars were done at the same time as the vocals, with minimal vocal overdubs being done after the fact. My voice was quite tired after a few hours of singing at the top of my lungs though. We had a fun problem to solve at one point: my Starcaster was squeaking! It turned out that the strap locks were squealing when I moved even slightly, meaning that there were random high pitched noises coming through the vocal microphone from the strap – rather embarrassing and totally killing the dream-like vibe!.
Gear wise, I used either my Mexican Jazzmaster or my Modern Player Starcaster into my plethora of pedals. These were tuned in Drop C# with other strings down a semitone, inspired by Midwife’s guitar tuning and Emma Ruth Rundle’s guitar tones. My usual amp setup is a dual mono rig (split after reverb), with a Music Man 65RP and a Hiwatt Hi-Gain 50W, both run totally clean so I can add progressively more gain with my pedalboard and fuzzes. The amps have very high headroom; I have only ever clipped the Hiwatt once. These were both dialled in differently to allow different voices and frequencies to ring through. I use this setup live too and the amps are absolute monsters. I have never taken the Music Man above ‘3’ on the volume dial when practising as it’s frighteningly loud. Both amps take fuzz beautifully but can also cope with the lower tunings like my drop A baritone Reverend Descent (used more nowadays.)
My main board is huge: 16 pedals included in total. I like a range of brands but interesting and ‘different’ is what I search for mainly. Currently there are multiple gain stages, fuzzes, reverbs, delays and a phaser. Integral to the sound I use on the EP are the following boxes: Walrus Lore, Earthquaker Afterneath, Holy Island Audio Tides (a gorgeous dirty reverb) and the Death By Audio Reverberation Machine. The different gain stages include a Death By Audio Fuzz War, an Earthquaker Palisades and Hizumitas and a Holy Island Glass Palace (DOD Bifet with funky mods). I love the Holy Island stuff – really nasty pedals that can go from a gentle growl to full on signal annihilation. I have tried to strike the balance between ‘pad like’ and chimy but there is a balance I can only really tweak live. The difference between in-room and on-tape recordings is a bit aggravating.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Ben-I am hugely influenced by Alex Garland, Ari Aster and Robert Egger’s films. Annihilation is such a kaleidoscopic dream, it sweeps you along in the story while remaining insidious and indistinct. Beautiful imagery and sorrow permeate Midsommar. The VVitch and the Lighthouse again are films I hold in high esteem; they are fantastically shot, produced and visionary motion pictures. It would be a delight to compose some music in the vein of early This Will Destroy You, Caspian or even something like Emma Ruth Rundle’s compositions to support something as nihilistic, creative and dream-like as these films. As I also can play violin and viola, I would love to experiment using extended techniques, effects and scordatura (a la John Cale) to really be imaginative and creating interesting textures with the instruments I select. I think I lack the know-how and organization to be able to pull it off effectively though!
CMM-What do you have coming up next? Any new recordings or shows?
Ben-I am very excited for the next few things coming in the pipeline. I have a lot more free time over the summer to play music and write meaning this project will step up for a little while. Firstly, my recent performance in Ipswich has been put online, showcasing my fuzzier, angrier style in contrast to the quieter and more introspective demos recorded in January. I felt that the show went well, meaning that it should come through effectively on the recording despite a couple of wrong chords in the dark of the venue. The sound engineer said that he really enjoyed my performance, so hopefully it shines through properly and the mixing engineer said he liked it too!.
As well as this, I have some upcoming studio time where I am hoping to get a few tracks recorded live. I find it really hard to play parts in isolation; my voice and guitars are so thoroughly interwoven that live recording will be the best way for me to do this. The engineer/producer that I am working with has been behind the desk for a lot of my open mic performances, so he is well aware of how much things should ring out and how best to mix my voice into the fuzzy, reverberant cacophony. We completed the guitars and initial vocal recording in late May, with more work to do going forwards. I am targeting a September release so I can spend the summer polishing.
Lastly, I have had a few local musicians reach out expressing interest in being part of a live band (including a drummer!). I am delighted with this prospect and I am cautiously optimistic. I want to preserve the core of the musical vision that I have, but these talented folks seem to be on the same wavelength. I want to maintain the flexibility of both a solo set and a louder, broader, doomier sound with other guitars, drums and a bassist. The initial jams with the drummer were very positive, with the three hours flying by.
When that is all secured and practised, as well as the LP, I am hoping that more bookings come my way. My local music scene has some fantastic cheerleaders in it and I am lucky to have caught the shine of a couple now. Roll on another gig!
