Based in Christchurch, NZ, Ben Woods announced himself back in 2019 when he released his debut album, PUT. The record achieved widespread acclaim, establishing Woods as one of the leading figures of a new, weird wave of what writer Jasmine Gallagher calls “Antipodean Gothic”, and leading to him sharing stages with the likes of Aldous Harding, Julia Jacklin and No Age.
Now, three years later, Ben Woods has returned with a sophomore effort, Dispeller, a record that promises to be even darker, stranger and more entrancing. Created in Woods’ hometown Lyttelton across the duration of year, the record is occupied with the ordinary and the extraordinary, the harmonious and the dissonant. It takes the sounds of the familiar, right down to the background rattle and clicks of the recording space, and weaves them into songs both gloomy and oddly beautiful. “I found my voice in trying to make atonality croon,” Woods describes. “With Dispeller it was less about harmony — the blend was capturing the songs very honestly in the room, and still making each of them to transport you somewhere different.”
Latest single, ‘Wearing Divine’ captures this feeling perfectly. A slow and shaky duet with Lucy Hunter (of Opposite Sex and Wet Specimen), the song has the tenuous fragility of a dream. The surreal atmosphere blossoms just beyond the midpoint with the onset of Marlon Williams’s tape-degraded choral vocals, like a wordless divine message recorded to an antique answerphone in the dead of night. Check out the video, directed by Woods and Julian Vares, below:
Dispeller will be released on 15th June on Meritorio Records (EU/UK), Shrimper (US) and Melted Ice Cream (NZ). Pre-order it now via the Ben Woods Bandcamp page.
