23 December 2006

Ben Christophers

2 of 2 rapid fire guest posts from Manchester's Slow Joe

Ben Christophers' Viewfinder (Rocketeer 2005)



Also, Ben Christophers' 'Viewfinder'. I've been a fan of Christophers' sly, sideways, wired folk stylings for a long time now. This last album is lacking in both the pop-sensible joie de vie and the brazen bizzarity that previous albums seemed to flit between with abandon. It's also lacking in length, being 38 minutes, a fair chunk of which is filled up with short instrumentals (perhaps this was meant to be an EP?). Though, while this may be down in energy, the result is coherent, sophisticated and even romantic. The variety of genre influences are wild, but they are never beaten into you. This song is definitely one of the more upbeat tracks on the album, but despite the overall laziness, I don't feel that any point in the album falls into anything remotely akin to self-pity.

Hope you like them, have a good one this weekend...

No comments: