Today, Ben Gregory announces details of his solo debut album ‘Episode’, a majestic, multi-faceted and emotionally wrenching record born out of a period of profound personal upheaval. In 2019 Blaenavon, the much-beloved band with whom he released two widely acclaimed albums, was dissolving and Gregory was receiving treatment in psychiatric hospitals. The album began to come together during his recovery. With breath-taking instrumentals and dark, insightful lyrics, Gregory – with the help of producer and old friend Blaine Harrison of Mystery Jets and engineer Matt Twaites – pushed his music to genre-bending limits.
Ben on the album: ‘Everything on “Episode” comes back to my struggle to interpret, or reinterpret, my life and its core relationships, after having my concept of reality revoked. This may sound dramatic, but it’s hard to know if you can trust how you feel about a partner, a situation, a future, when you’ve sat in a hospital bed, torn a newspaper to shreds, sat back and watched it put itself back together.’
Alongside the album announcement, Gregory is releasing his second single ‘manifest*’, a transcendently climactic piece of alt-rock that is both anthemic and introspective.
His debut solo single ‘Deathbed Hangover’ received acclaim from Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Notion, Clash, The Line Of Best Fit and DIY amongst others.
The accompanying video to ‘manifest*’ is set against gloomy scenes in Berlin that alternate between urban cityscapes and dusky rural scenes that evoke feelings of melancholia.
Ben on the track:
‘'manifest*' is about feeling fated to certain situations and lacking control over your own position in life. It looks towards a potential future that is desired but unlikely, focused on a partner and an imagined future family. There are elements of a slightly tragic fixation in there. The narrative retelling is real but it questions itself and cannot commit to painting an impossible future. The attempt was to portray this process of recollection, because people choose how they shape their own memories.’
‘Episode’ is a record of unbelievable capacity, in which is to be found true catharsis; the type of record that does not come around often.
Tracklist
storm of conversation
blue sea blue
((fall away ’till morn..))
manifest*
deathbed hangover
mother’s son
smoke
god bless you
Ben on the album: ‘Everything on “Episode” comes back to my struggle to interpret, or reinterpret, my life and its core relationships, after having my concept of reality revoked. This may sound dramatic, but it’s hard to know if you can trust how you feel about a partner, a situation, a future, when you’ve sat in a hospital bed, torn a newspaper to shreds, sat back and watched it put itself back together.’
Alongside the album announcement, Gregory is releasing his second single ‘manifest*’, a transcendently climactic piece of alt-rock that is both anthemic and introspective.
His debut solo single ‘Deathbed Hangover’ received acclaim from Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Notion, Clash, The Line Of Best Fit and DIY amongst others.
The accompanying video to ‘manifest*’ is set against gloomy scenes in Berlin that alternate between urban cityscapes and dusky rural scenes that evoke feelings of melancholia.
Ben on the track:
‘'manifest*' is about feeling fated to certain situations and lacking control over your own position in life. It looks towards a potential future that is desired but unlikely, focused on a partner and an imagined future family. There are elements of a slightly tragic fixation in there. The narrative retelling is real but it questions itself and cannot commit to painting an impossible future. The attempt was to portray this process of recollection, because people choose how they shape their own memories.’
‘Episode’ is a record of unbelievable capacity, in which is to be found true catharsis; the type of record that does not come around often.
Tracklist
storm of conversation
blue sea blue
((fall away ’till morn..))
manifest*
deathbed hangover
mother’s son
smoke
god bless you
