By Fotis Nikolakopoulos
The opening track, of this great long play vinyl (that made it in my top ten
list for this year) sets the record straight. Titled “What a normal day is
like” it utilizes several sound sources that are percussion-like (or he
makes them sound that way indeed) but unrecognizable, unless you see images
or a video of him producing sounds, it provides all the alternative ways of
what sound is and what a sound source should be. It is really an answer to
the “what is” question posed by his long time collaborator, saxophonist and
improviser too, Jack Wright.
Yes, Bennett is an improviser in the purest form of one can be. His music,
if you are lucky enough to catch him in the act, borders between sound and
un-sound making, with each leg on one side. Utilizing every, and I mean
every, object possible, he frees sound making from any restraint
possible … even though in 2025 there shouldn’t be such dialectic, but what
can you do.
Trying to be radical just for the sake of it can easily feel boring and
pretentious. The sixth track on this LP, titled “What my dog would sound
like if I had one” is a clear case of the struggle anyone has to make in
order, not to sound “different”, but to be himself or herself. Being you and
creating music is almost un-describable, certainly very hard to review. Free
improvisation, still proving its radicalism, is a marginalized form, but I
don’t want to pin Ben’s music just to this. Even though “this” (meaning free
improviasation) is very broad and open in any sense.
So, Answers can easily be described by the aforementioned genre, but also as
electro-acoustic experimentation, musique concrete or just fragmented and
dissipated rythmology that uses unknown (sic) sources. In any case, or to
many other possible, Answers, is brave and radical.
Listen here:
@koultouranafigo