Music / Premieres
Video Premiere:
Ben Woods - Hovering at Home
Ben Woods - Hovering at Home
Alongside the news that his forthcoming second album Dispeller is set to be released this July, today we have the pleasure of sharing a first look at the equally unsettling and disarming new single ‘Hovering at Home’ from New Zealand outsider artist Ben Woods.
Following on from his 2019 debut album PUT and his 2021 single ‘Body Rhyme’, Ben Woods latest musical offering feels like both an expansion and a re-imagining of what we’ve heard from him before. While his previous music has often leant into ambient and oddball atmospheres to unbalance his indie-rock songwriting smarts, on ‘Hovering at Home’ these off-kilter tendencies seem to serve as the equilibrium, anchoring the track into Ben’s muggy sonic world.
After opening with the warm and wobbly lilt of an acoustic guitar against a backdrop of nature sounds, ‘Hovering at Home’ blooms with Ben’s looming vocals, seemingly delicate and all-encompassing at once as they stream down the track’s centre. Meanwhile, the soundscape continues to expand with a swirl of unrecognisable sounds and textures, subtle at first before growing more haphazard until these warping layers begin to swamp the track. Somehow, the swarming noise manages to make ‘Hovering at Home’ feel all the more intimate, and as the grit builds up against Ben’s evocative delivery while serene guitars and horns tangle in the background, the track’s initial folksy charisma seems to shift and refract to become overwhelmingly potent by its conclusion. Fittingly, Ben explains “‘Hovering at Home’ is about the magical world we hold onto in hermitude, and rejecting the social requisites of the outside. Initially I thought it was about hiding, but as we carried on building the song, I came to realise it was more about bringing that inner world to the light.”
The new single comes accompanied by a stunning yet unsettling new clip created by Ben and filmmaker Martin Sagadin. Loaded with a kind of haunted beauty, it’s a striking visual experience that masterfully brings out the eerie otherworldliness that's constantly bubbling beneath the track’s instrumentation. Speaking about the clip, Ben shares “The video is a retelling of a paranormal experience I had as a child with my cousin - our family was big into fishing. One night we were together visited by an inhuman entity that danced at our window. I was initially scared from the experience, but have come to think of it as a fond memory over time. Insularly and meticulously building this surreal universe felt like the right way to serve the spirit of the song."
After opening with the warm and wobbly lilt of an acoustic guitar against a backdrop of nature sounds, ‘Hovering at Home’ blooms with Ben’s looming vocals, seemingly delicate and all-encompassing at once as they stream down the track’s centre. Meanwhile, the soundscape continues to expand with a swirl of unrecognisable sounds and textures, subtle at first before growing more haphazard until these warping layers begin to swamp the track. Somehow, the swarming noise manages to make ‘Hovering at Home’ feel all the more intimate, and as the grit builds up against Ben’s evocative delivery while serene guitars and horns tangle in the background, the track’s initial folksy charisma seems to shift and refract to become overwhelmingly potent by its conclusion. Fittingly, Ben explains “‘Hovering at Home’ is about the magical world we hold onto in hermitude, and rejecting the social requisites of the outside. Initially I thought it was about hiding, but as we carried on building the song, I came to realise it was more about bringing that inner world to the light.”
The new single comes accompanied by a stunning yet unsettling new clip created by Ben and filmmaker Martin Sagadin. Loaded with a kind of haunted beauty, it’s a striking visual experience that masterfully brings out the eerie otherworldliness that's constantly bubbling beneath the track’s instrumentation. Speaking about the clip, Ben shares “The video is a retelling of a paranormal experience I had as a child with my cousin - our family was big into fishing. One night we were together visited by an inhuman entity that danced at our window. I was initially scared from the experience, but have come to think of it as a fond memory over time. Insularly and meticulously building this surreal universe felt like the right way to serve the spirit of the song."
Dispeller is out on Friday July 15th via Melted Ice Cream (NZ), Shrimper Records (US) and Meritorio Records (EU/UK) - head to benwoodsgroup.bandcamp.com to pre-order the album on limited 12" vinyl.
