Ota Benga's textured love lament on "Don't Lie" from the emotional travelogue "Sing When I'm Dead"

 

"oh, she's the one that knows me best..."

From his new album "Sing When I'm Dead", acoustic artist, singer-songwriter, Ota Benga delivers a beautiful lament on "Don't Lie" framed with textured acoustic picking, droning sounds and layers of vocal harmonies. The song with it's surprising chord falls and ascensions feels classic in tone like a folk song that could of been written in the 60's or any decade after. It is a formula that works well through his full length on songs like the rootsy "Troubles" graced with slide guitar or the more scattered dissonance of "Map Of The Scars" that has a tinge of a sea shanty or the bruised up "Country Mile" with elegant, even divergent lines throughout. Other tracks delve into fusions of dark bits of psychedelic folk in post rock-ian ways like the lovely more askew "Senorita Smiles", like a fluttering amalgam of Beatles meets Radiohead. "Honeymoon" with it's dense vocal wash feels nostalgic but somehow melancholy behind it's white picket fence illusions and the acoustic drunkenness of the coda, "I'll Sing When I'm Dead" feels appropriate, an open cage.

Ota Benga, on this album, covers a lot of terrain shaping his fluid vocal aesthetic and nimble acoustic work in stark ways without sounding like a busker or bedroom pop artist. There is a self awareness in the production that with very little (layering and reverb) pushes a big sound. That sense of an encompassing musical narrative is a testament to melody in both the acoustic playing and vocals and lyrics that hook you in, conjuring up your own imagery onto Benga's stories.

Impressive work, art on this Sunday morning.

-Robb Donker Curtius

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THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:

Singer/songwriter Ota Benga's soul-searching sound comes after over a decade spent living and working in London, Geneva, Dublin, Sydney, Congo and Pakistan. Always a stranger in a strange land, his stripped-back songs speak of a search for meaning and belonging whilst wrestling with universal issues of mortality, love, ageing, and the travails of work.


Originally a guitarist happiest playing rock covers to crowds of drunken ex-pats, his musical style developed after a friend introduced him to Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. - the musical outlets for revered songwriter Jason Molina. Like Molina, his songs are reduced to their purest elements leaving his soul on display for the world to hear. This raw exposure following dislocation drove the choice of moniker: Ota Benga is the name of a man once shipped around the world to be put on display in a zoo.

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