Ben Khan is a man who believes in art. His art. The power and mysticism of art. This much is evident within the PR for his debut album Ben Khan which features the truism “Explanation can ruin art.” Khan is either wary of his music being misinterpreted or merely a lazy git with little patience for the usual trappings of media soundbites and pleasantries. He explains further “…when it comes to music I don’t believe in reason. It’s about emotion and feeling and intuition…when it’s with press, everything you say feels like it’s being said to be sold.” Well that’s told me! OK Ben, let’s play by your rules. The only way to review an album loosely labelled as ‘art’ is to reply in kind, so I asked my cat, Mrs Tigglesworth, to review the album whilst dressed in a kimono, gently sipping a Martini. Here’s what she thought.
Three years (or 29 cat years) without sight nor sound from London-based singer/producer Ben Khan and finally he’s back with Ben Khan, Seriously, you have three years to work on an album as dense as this and you give approximately 37 seconds thought to the title? Ah well, that’s artists for you. Khan is clearly a clever chap, there’s a 1001 different noises contained within the album, all melded together in an odd, unsettling cacophony of electronic soundscapes. At times this can be as warm and cosy as a doze in front of a roaring fire, occasionally as satisfying as a bowl of IAMS and perversely as irritating as being locked in a garden shed for a week whilst the owners disappear to Center Parcs.
Whilst I may be a cat, I am wholly bewildered by this album. Khan perceives this to be a collection of tracks, each “markedly different from the next” yet all I can ascertain is the same beeps, twiddles (no, not Tiddles…he’s my brother) and discordant beats which often sound like they are being played backwards at the wrong speed. Ben Khan has been crafted by someone hell-bent on perfectionism, three years of attention to detail, ensuring every note adds something, means something and exorcises some inner personal details. Khan’s thoughts on love sum up the album, “I’ve got a real problem with the word love anyway because we just throw it around as if it’s understood, when it’s just a combination of loads of different emotions. It always fades, because it never really existed in the first place.” No, me neither readers.
Ultimately, like a sparrow that’s always just out of reach, the album fails to satisfy. It becomes a collection of sounds, recorded in an elaborate bedroom setting mixed with strewn pizza boxes, discarded socks and used Kleenex. There is little point is discussing Ben Khan track by track because there appears little delineation, this is a sonic ride into the musical psyche of one mans world, unfortunately he is likely to be the only one who really understands and contextualizes it. The rest of us are lost in the woods by the end of the first track.
It’s a beautiful, lovingly constructed piece of art…but only if you’re Ben Khan. And certainly not if you’re a cat who likes licking its own arse.
Ben Khan is out now via Dirty Hit
