search for something...

search for something you might like...

The Book Of Bare Life & Returns Tim London Considers Alcohol and Redemption while listening to David Benjamin Blower's new LP

The Book Of Bare Life & Returns

Tim London Considers Alcohol and Redemption while listening to David Benjamin Blower's new LP

by Tim London,
first published: March, 2023

approximate reading time: minutes

It's a sad, gorgeous album, at its most potent when it is most simple, drones or flamming, picked guitar chords and voice. - Tim London

SleeveDAVID BENJAMIN BLOWER
THE BOOK OF BARE LIFE & RETURNS: Praying the Psalms in the Anthropocene
(Bandcamp/CD)
favoritefavoritefavoritefavoritefavorite

Why do we drink? Sometimes it’s to make sense of reality, or to transform ourselves in our own eyes. I used to think that the ‘real’ me was a happily drunk and stoned man who could still walk and talk and operate dangerous machinery. And my missus has often said, to paraphrase a Latin phrase, that drunk people tell the truth about themselves.

Some singers drink in order to ‘find’ a voice. Especially British singers and white American singers from more privileged backgrounds. There’s a perceived authenticity there, in a drinker’s drawl. And it’s easier to slip into an American accent, or slur certain words that blur meaning, give it a coating of mystery or sincerity. Joe Strummer perfected a drunken hoarseness, which was probably real inebriation a lot of the time, and Tom Waits, was a famous drunkard until he sobered up at the moment when his music became most drunken but has sounded drunk ever since.

This album by Benjamin Blower sounds drunk. A sit in the snug, observing in the shadows, away from the firelight kind of drunk. A man arrives at a fantasy pub, stuck on a hillside somewhere between Wales, Eire and Norfolk, he’s already drunk, but not so you would notice. It’s a sad drunk. A young man reaching the kind of old age gained after a couple of realisations that have removed the joy from his life so that he must ponder and shake his head at the stupid world until, at last, in the morning, still reeling, his gaze is drawn to a bird of prey intent on killing something, flying in graceful eights and circles above. At which point he experiences a Blake-ian ecstasy which is blood and hormones and love and last night’s booze.

Then he writes a song.

It’s a sad, gorgeous album, at its most potent when it is most simple, drones or flamming, picked guitar chords and voice. The words are best experienced within the songs - we don’t need more bible, more messages or lessons. There is more lesson in the sound and the places the noise combinations take you. And I would worry that close examination of the lyrics would leave me with an argument. And there’s enough of them, too.

DBB takes us to a place with a forgotten view, access to the river, the gap between containers and pylons that frames a ruined chimney, or a cafe with the best cuppa in town. He guides us, quietly and you don’t want to ask too many questions because the answers could be puzzles or conspiracies and the real good stuff is just that guiding quality. That’s the beauty of music, of art. It exists all by itself once it’s made. The journey, then the thing, and then whoever took you there slips off to become a misty memory. You’re left with a kind of sensory wisdom - you know something you didn’t before but struggle to know exactly what it is. It’s a good thing, of benefit, sure, leaves you, me, feeling a little sad, too.


Essential Information
Main image by Richard Harris
David Benjamin Blower on Bandcamp⇒

Tim London

Tim London is a musician, music producer and writer. Originally from a New Town in Essex he is at home amidst concrete and grand plans for the working class. Tim's latest thriller, Smith, is available now. Find out more at timothylondon.com


about Tim London »»

Armoires week web banner

RECENT STORIES

RANDOM READS

All About and Contributors

HELP OUTSIDELEFT

Outsideleft exists on a precarious no budget budget. We are interested in hearing from deep and deeper pocket types willing to underwrite our cultural vulture activity. We're not so interested in plastering your product all over our stories, but something more subtle and dignified for all parties concerned. Contact us and let's talk. [HELP OUTSIDELEFT]

WRITE FOR OUTSIDELEFT

If Outsideleft had arms they would always be wide open and welcoming to new writers and new ideas. If you've got something to say, something a small dank corner of the world needs to know about, a poem to publish, a book review, a short story, if you love music or the arts or anything else, write something about it and send it along. Of course we don't have anything as conformist as a budget here. But we'd love to see what you can do. Write for Outsideleft, do. [SUBMISSIONS FORM HERE]

OUTSIDELEFT UNIVERSE

Ooh Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha May 29th
OUTSIDELEFT Night Out
weekend

outsideleft content is not for everyone