Ben Howard - Is It?

There aren't many mentions of Ben Howard on ILM, and those that do exist are primarily dismissive or disgusted, it seems mostly due to Howard gaining early notoriety for winning a Brit award for his first album of unexciting acoustic folk-rock and at the same time saying something dismissive about modern R&B. That specific crime maybe crystalised Howard's broader failings at that point: the unexciting and conservative bent of his (original) folk-rock sound, the mushy-mouthed sentimentality of his songs which recall David Grey, the sense that British popular music was gradually being leeched of any drama or interest or innovation.

I was unaware of all that, and only discovered the guy with 2018's Noonday Dream: the David Grey resemblance is still there, but situated within a consistently gorgeous set of subtle and layered arrangements that pretty openly (and I assume self-consciously) recalled John Martyn circa Solid Air and Inside Out. I remember also quite liking 2021's Collections from the Whiteout but now can't really recall much specifically about it - perhaps because it really sounded like the Aaron Dessner-produced album it was but came out at a time when I was still lost in another Dessner-produced album for another singer-songwriter who a lot of people dislike. And perhaps also because it didn't feel like a push forwards so much as a consolidation. Also, Howard is a sufficiently wispy songwriter that he perhaps doesn't need additional doses of subtlety and nuance on the arrangement side.

The new album is produced by Bullion, and takes the sonic influences Howard has been toying with to their logical conclusion. If one were to posit a 2023 album produced by Bullion (aka Westerman, whose own 2023 album is, I think, even better) which sounds like it takes its cues from Martyn's One World, Arthur Russell's Another Thought, Paul Buchanan's Mid-Air and Talk Talk's The Colour of Spring (though the glittering "Walking Backwards" perhaps is more It's My Life) you'd assume it would generate a fairly positive reaction.

So what is going on here?

I think it's partly the voice: high-pitched and mewling and occasionally difficult to understand in a manner that we forgive in Russell and Mark Hollis perhaps on the explicit basis that it will be regarded with suspicion coming from anyone else.

And obviously it's partly the prior Mumfordy associations which it's difficult for Howard to now move past.

But I also wonder if the fact of artist like Howard failing to move the needle here reflects the extent to which "we" (a specific version of "us") have "won", with the genius of artists like Martyn, Russell, Buchanan and Hollis now so broadly acknowledged that it's no longer particularly exciting (perhaps the opposite) to see our investment in those artists reflected back to us in the music of otherwise-MOR artists who we could easily do the morning talk show circuit.

Anyway, I still really like this album and think it's worth hearing.

i'd never heard of this guy before and this sounds right up my alley so i'm listening to the first track which feels like a folk singer got really into cupid & psyche or maybe eno & hyde's someday world? those are both positives

Apparently another influence for this album is Eno and Cale’s Wrong Way Up!

that makes perfect sense

one of the worst album covers I've ever seen, but sounding like prime processed-guitar churchy-reverb Timcore from the opening track, tentative thumbs up. that very modern ghosty-sample amendment to the Timcore sound emerging in the second track too. reinforcing the Tradition, probably there needs to be a better name for this sound ('sophistipop' alone doesn't quite cover what it has become?)

it's sophisti-pop adjacent but this is something else yeah

Yeah the album cover really is awful, and I don’t like the album name either. I am not pretending this guy doesn’t throw up a few red flags!

I think Simon Reynolds called Primal Scream “record collector rock” - stuff like this is maybe “record collector AOR”?

I can’t help but suspect that part of my enjoyment is derived from the very mild frisson of such meticulously overproduced soundscaping attaching itself to such congenial and unassuming songwriting.

another obvious predecessor is sylvian's brilliant trees

Howard suffered a couple of mini-strokes last year; the album - including the title and godawful cover art - is broadly about that experience, apparently.

Not come across him before. The names referenced in the thread are like catnip to me and yep, enjoying it very much. It might the knowledge about the theme but it's reminding me of Beth Orton's album from last year.

Yeah when I heard the Orton album it actually reminded me a lot of Noonday Dream.