Cult DIY outfit and BBC 6 music favourites Mr Ben & the Bens return in 2024 with a brand new 10 track LP Small Wide World via Bingo Records.

After years of steadily touring the back and even-further-back of beyond in the UK, as well as some of the island’s most beloved venues, Ben found himself taking a well-earned hiatus during 2023. Hibernating in his Sheffield studio in an old pewter factory, and in between working as a full-time potter come illustrator, he penned a set of contemplative songs which would later become the new album.

From the ‘Village Green’ era Kinks-style ‘Poor, Poor Me’ to the motoric ‘Listening Party’, Small Wide World combines tried-and-tested methods with sonic departures for the band. Recorded in Tesla Studios and produced by David Glover the new album inhabits a world of vintage drums machines, shimmering acoustics and wiry synthesisers.

Lyrically, kitchen sink realism winds its way around a set of songs jam packed with melancholic melody. ‘So long Sympathy’ speaks of fragile ego and our means of combatting this, and ‘Penny Drop’ of the loudest voice in the room disarmed by a junior colleague. Ben aims to disarm hostility in both society and the self with sensitive, personal sentiment.

TRACK LISTING

1. Penny Drop
2. Hermit & The Hare
3. So Long Sympathy
4. My Balloon
5. I Got You
6. Listening Party
7. Pity Party
8. Poor Poor Me
9. Where Do You Wander?
10. Small Wide World

Wild Garlic - a four-track EP - sees Gonzalez recording with a full band, with the aim of capturing a sound as close to his live shows as possible, for the first time since he played in his earlier band Let’s Wrestle. Production was handled by Jamie Neville (Puma Rosa) and Ben Romans Hopcraft (Warmduscher, Childhood, Insecure Men) at Teeth Studios in Northwood Junction.

Of the EP, Wesley added: “I have been blessed with a new lineup of fantastic musicians to accompany me on the road, we started referring to the band as Wild Garlic and the camaraderie and talent of the band has had a direct effect on how I chose to record this EP.”

The EP is the first release by Gonzalez on Sheffield-based independent record label Bingo Records (The Bug Club, Melin Melyn, Mr Ben & the Bens).

TRACK LISTING

1. When I Rot 03:11
2. II Proud II Beg 03:25
3. Dress Rehearsal 03:56
4. Old Town 03:14

Ten years of work. Twenty releases released. Thirty million pounds banked. It's a year for irrelevant milestones for Mr Ben & the Bens, as they return with a new album, which is just over forty minutes long.

On 'Good Day for Drying' Ben airs out songs that have dwelt in his head for a while. Songs that have been waiting for a day when they can be put out there, on show, and left subject to the volatile weather of public opinion.

Having been written some time ago, many of these songs were test-driven during solo gigs throughout Sheffield in the first half of 2022. A week in the Tesla Studios in Meersbrook with Glover and the bulk of it was there. Nobody honestly knows what mastering is (trade secret), but that happened, and now you can listen to it.

TRACK LISTING

1.When They Hear Your Name 03:25
2.Tendrils 03:13
3.Walking Away 02:22
4.Are You Talking To Me? 01:50
5.I Am Your Friend 04:18
6.Prancer 02:29
7.It's Happening Again 03:27
8.Hey Blues 03:12
9.Nape Of My Neck 02:48
10.Glover's Lane 02:36
11.Apple Cart Undertakers 04:58
12.Common Flu 03:26
13.Lender 03:19

Green Dream in F# is a culmination of The Bug Club universe that has been constructed over the course of two sold out EPs, a couple of standalone singles, and the kind of relentless touring the band has quickly become known for. ‘It’s Art’ is a typically short piece of garage pop perfection, beginning quietly and with singer and guitarist Sam Willmett listing the band’s musical heroes in the manner similar to one of those he namechecks: Jonathan Richman. The band’s ever-present sardonic wit is at the forefront, as they question the meaning and purpose of art - and in turn themselves - before throwing in a blistering guitar riff and the trademark duel-vocals between Sam and Tilly Harris (bass, vocals) before things get too serious.

The band say this first single sets the tone for the album, and musically it presents us with a refined version of what we have come to expect on the basis of previous releases: whip-smart pop songs performed flawlessly and with humour by one of the tightest musical units going. As indicated by the names of both first single and album, The Bug Club’s debut LP shows the band taking a long, hard look at the way the music industry - and by extension the art world - takes itself so seriously, and deciding to ignore that and carry on doing things on their own terms.

Riding atop drummer Dan Matthew’s relentlessly solid foundation, Green Dream in F# packs in 14 tracks covering favourite The Bug Club topics including space, small town life, love and swearing. Sam and Tilly’s playing could be virtuosic if they were in any way arrogant, but they’re not, and so well-crafted and at times complex guitar work sits neatly within the sharp song structures that never stick around too long, and backs engaging and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny lyrical storytelling.

Following the remarkable DIY success of early EPs Launching Moondream One and Pure Particles (also available via Bingo Records), Green Dream in F# shows a band not at all phased by the prospect of putting out their debut full length. Instead, they use the space to stretch their abilities and create something as cohesive, involved and engrossing as you’d expect the imaginary, dog-directed symphony their LP’s name pokes fun at to be.

TRACK LISTING

1. Only In Love
2. Six O’Clock News
3. Little Coy Space Boy
4. Love Is A Painting
5. It’s Art
6. Love For Two
7. My Guy
8. Going Down
9. Yesterday’s Paper
10. Sitting On The Rings Of Saturn
11. Christmas Lullaby
12. Love Letters From Jupiter
13. Some Things Sound Better In Space
14. Green Dream In F#

Here Comes the Wave is the new album from Sheffield-based filmmakers-turned-musicians Family Selection Box. Building on the kitchen-sink narratives of its predecessor Confetti - which earned praise and airplay from BBC 6 Music’s Marc Riley - Here Comes The Wave maintains songwriter Tom Diffenthal’s fascination with everyday life shot through with a hyper-real expression of his own anxieties when coping with it. Lead single Where Did She Go? sets the tone for the album with Lauren Dowling’s breezy vocals telling the story about the pair’s beloved cat Peggy-Sue coupling with the laid-back Lou Reed-meets-Metronomy guitars and then being used as a vehicle to deal with worry, uncertainty and a lack of direction.

The juxtaposition of the upbeat, wonky pop tunes with the considered, lyrical storytelling is also present in the likes of Trying to Forget What’s on Ur Mind and Hollywood Babylon , however the album is varied in it pacing and style. Melancholic Car Journey Part I , as well as its follow up Part II reveals Tom and Lauren’s knack for stripping the music back and letting the strong lyrics sit at the forefront. The complex instrumentation in the swelling woodwind and brass sections of Don’t Break My Heart is grand and belies the album’s DIY methods of creation. Tom said: “This album is about exploring the brighter side of anxiety, whether that’s worrying about the wider state of the world and its structural injustices or being panicked that your indoor cat has found its way outdoors. “There’s also a nod to a time when my best friends were so hungover they squabbled over who had ownership over the one plastic bag they had on standby. “It was recorded mainly at home, although £27 was spent on a rehearsal room to record drums.”

As filmmakers - with award-winning shorts under their belts as well as being resident music video auteurs for the rest of their Bingo Records label mates - Tom and Lauren are no strangers to a compelling narrative. And their work as members of Bingo stablemates and 6 music favourites Mr Ben & the Bens and Potpourri means we are all well aware of their musical aptitude. Here Comes the Wave is a culmination of these things, and a crystalisation of an artistic vision that successfully uses the lens of familiar life to consider - often with a healthy dose of wry humour- the ways in which the ordinary can often seem funny, bleak, strange and daunting all at the same time. This is an album about confronting things head on and looking for brightness, and invites the listener to do so as they engage with it. And much like the narrator in album closer Goodbye Wave , they will be glad they did. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Here Comes The Wave
2. Sunday Morning
3. Trying To Forget What's On Ur Mind
4. On The Bridge
5. Where Did She Go?
6. Melancholic Car Journey Pt. 1
7. Hollywood Babylon
8. The Super Market
9. Melancholic Car Journey Pt. II
10. The Serotonin Swing
11. Don't Break My Heart
12. Goodbye Wave