Today, Ben Gregory releases his ambitious first single ‘Deathbed Hangover’, a standalone track 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. It was during his recovery that he started to create new music. With the help of producer and old friend Blaine Harrison of Mystery Jets and engineer Matt Twaites, ‘Deathbed Hangover’ signals to an exciting new sonic space for Gregory, the track is an epic clocking in at just over 7 minutes - a frenetic and intense collision of electronics over which Gregory’s vocals are distorted to the brink of intelligibility. This single comes alongside exciting news, as announced on Ben’s socials, that he is working on a collection of new music.
Gregory on the track: “Deathbed Hangover is about the self-destructive tendency of total immersion in entertainment. My brain has the consistency of mushy peas because my telephone is so seductive. I tried to play this against more traditional fears of aggressive technological expansion: communities moving underground in a Wellsian nightmare. The laptop-screen light is our never-setting sun, which I think is accidentally a Mr. Burns reference. I recorded this song during lockdown after hard-binging Watchmen (2019) and finding Reznor/Ross’ soundtrack overwhelmingly beautiful. I hope I referenced some of that in a decent light. (Bear in mind I am just a guitarist randomly mashing computer keys.) Interesting fact: The demo of this song was always labelled ‘(unmixable version)’. I like to think the original chaos carries through, but Blaine (Producer) and Matt (Engineer, Mixer) managed to make a version that verges on listenable.”
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