Benjamin Shaw: Goodbye Kagoul World

Benjamin Shaw is back!

It’s been more than two years since his first album was released on Audio Antihero, and while he’s been pretty busy since then this news of another is very welcome. For those of you who have somehow missed him, Shaw offers a superbly lo-fi mixture of guitars, hesitant vocals, buzzing-hissing-scratching noises and found sounds, like a singer-songwriter fighting to be heard over a swarm of lazy bees made of entropy. Or something. His last record, Summer In the Box Room, was pretty much all entropic bees; track it down on Bandcamp. But I think what makes this music valuably off-kilter is the way these things scuff up against the more straightforward songs; and, of course, Shaw’s superb lyrics, which are both hopeless and hilarious. Often at the same time.

‘Goodbye, Kagoul World’ is the title track of this new album, due out later this month. Available as a free download, it’s a lovely chiming stately thing – sounding a little like much-missed AAH labelmates Fighting Kites – that will make you feel comfortably glum. Lovely piano and trumpet by Lieven Scheerlinck.

The video is even sadder, filmed as it was at an animal rescue centre, but rather lovely too.

The album can be pre-ordered here in a number of formats, with or without the Benjamin Shaw Stress Ball.  I’m really looking forward to my copy.

jkneale