Exciting Opportunities: A Collection of Singles and Sadness by Benjamin Shaw - Audio Antihero/Old Money Records [MEGACOMP001]

Exciting Opportunities: A Collection of Singles and Sadness

Benjamin Shaw

A 10 track lo-fi album (51m 18s) — released April 12th 2019 on Audio Antihero/Old Money Records

#alternative #lofi

Exciting Opportunities: A Collection of Singles and Sadness pulls together some of the most eclectic and acclaimed moments from Benjamin Shaw's ten year catalogue. From his early beginnings of scratchy fuzzy lo-fi anti-folk ("I Got the Pox, the Pox is What I Got") to achingly minimal piano led songs ("HULK") and on into the territories of painfully self-aware power-pop ("You & Me"), looping burn out ("Goodbye, Kagoul World"), simmering slowcore showgaze ("Somewhere over the M6"), abrasive noise pop ("Terrible Feelings!") and sprawling Electronics ("A Brand New Day"). Amidst the feedback and dissonance, Shaw's weary optimism and battered hopes have always shone through the cracks.

Benjamin Shaw will be playing the 2019 Donaufestival (April 26th to May 5th) in Krems, Austria:

https://www.donaufestival.at/de/programm/programm-2019/23-benjamin-shaw#2019-05-04-15h30

Previous radio & press support: BBC 6 Music (Tom Ravenscroft, Gideon Coe, Tom Robinson, Steve Lamacq), BBC Radio 3 (Late Junction), FM4 (Heartbeat / Der Sumpf), DIY Mag, CLASH Music, Gold Flake Paint, The Line of Best Fit, Drowned in Sound, The Grey Estates, The 405, Various Small Flames, The Dimestore Saints, For the Rabbits, Atwood Magazine, The Alternative, The Skinny and more.

Born in Canada (accidentally) and raised in Blackpool before making the move to London, Shaw first appeared in 2009 with the Audio Antihero released 'I Got the Pox, the Pox is what I Got' EP -a fuzzing 6-tracker full of lo-fi dissonance and homicidal romance. The release went largely unnoticed at the time but would pick up support from BBC 6Music's Tom Ravenscroft and a slew of rave reviews, with The Line Of Best Fit warning readers that "if you think you've heard the likes of Benjamin Shaw before, think again."

Debut album 'There's Always Hope, There's Always Cabernet' was released to acclaim fromDrowned in Sound, The 405, Clash Music, TLOBF, This Is Fake DIY, GoldFlakePaint, the BBC and more. Shaw became the singer/songwriter who hated singer/songwriters and his material grew more varied with Folk-esque songs mixing with drones and foggy soundscapes, lurching uncertainly into accidental shoegaze, twisted arrangements and back again, before closing with an aching 7 minute piano ballad about The Incredible Hulk. Response ranged from Drowned In Sound calling it "Superb" to Subba Cultcha asking us to "please make it stop" – I believe "polarising" is the word?

Following a slew of gorgeous experimental soundscape albums, "Megadead" was his first "vocal" album since 2014's "Goodbye, Cagoule World." Packed with found sounds, electronics, samples, loops and liquid guitars. It's as melancholic and malicious as previous releases but with a renewed sense of urgency.

A piece of work that could stand the test of time...The solitude is palpable. - Gold Flake Paint

It’s a reminder that some of the most powerful emotions can bloom from the simplest of raw moments. - Drowned in Sound

You wouldn't want everyone (or anyone else) to sound to like Benjamin Shaw but I'm delighted someone does. - The Line of Best Fit

Benjamin Shaw is an outcast, a loner, a maverick and a freak. All of these are compliments. - CLASH Music

Shaw may be pop's outsider - something many outlets noted upon his entry into the world of music - but with this release, he shows a faint desire to join the central fold. Perhaps it's due to resolute defeat, but still, that counts, right? - The 405

Imagine yourself sitting in an empty room. All the lights are off. You just had a fight with your mom. Your skin feels like it’s crawling with ants and your fingers are shaking from the coffee you had late in the afternoon. Your nails dig into the back of your head and you tug at your hair, wondering how hard you could pull before you finally rip it out of your skull. That’s what it feels like to listen to Benjamin Shaw. - Atwood Magazine

Though to focus on terrible feelings as a beginning and end is to miss the point.…To flatten this into the trope of anti-social introvert misses the true admixture of forces at work—the guilt, the shame, the dreams impossible to achieve. The promises that could never be kept, the nostalgia for things that never existed. - Various Small Flames

Puts you right beside its maker as he helplessly glares at himself in the mirror. But the music that soundtracks those dark moments is as beautiful as it is morose. - The Alternative

A chameleon of genres, the Melbourne-based Shaw has drifted through washes of shoegaze and fields of electronica, melding dissonant drones and folk affectations into an incredibly singular and raw brand of confessional music, its ennui palpable. - Dimestore Saints

Benjamin Shaw doesn’t so much wear his heart on his sleeve as beam it into the sky like a sort of troubadour superhero...It’s a rich and honest album, and one well worth exploring. - Echoes & Dust

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