“…settle in under the shelter of the old forecourt canopy, gaze up at the big screen, with your own headphones and blanket, to join us for a road trip through Americana without ever leaving the comfort of your seat. Everyman’s own bar will of course be fully stocked with American hot dogs, beers, wine, cocktails and bottomless filter coffee.”
Thank you to Alphabet Bands blog for writing about my new track ‘Beyond That Nothing’
“Amongst the hustle and bustle, the hurly and the burly and the general warp-speed world that we all seem to live in these days, it can be difficult to find time to step back and evaluate life. It can even harder to find time to relax and just breathe. It is worth doffing one’s cap then to Benbrick as he has managed to do both on his latest track, the wistful and heartfelt “Beyond That Nothing”.
Benbrick is the artist pseudonym of London based producer-songwriter Paul Carter, who has recently found success in Japan with the Platinum selling single “Sakura Nagashi”. While that track featured on the closing credits of latest movie instalment of the insanely popular Evangelion anime series, “Beyond That Nothing” deals with much more personal matters.
A gentle piano refrain is layered with a passing synth note as Carter’s delicate and emotional vocal glides along. “There’s still some things that I’m trying to get over / Like how I always hold on / When all you do is hold back / Like how I should forgive you / For how you didn’t give”
Your mind conjures images of a man outside in the dark looking up at a window, a single silhouette passing by as the song treads softly as a lover on the eggshells of a failing relationship. Never rushing, never losing sight of what is important; it is gentle and full of emotion. The beat only picks up to a light jog as the chorus builds then fades once more as the synths shimmer around it.
Synth-pop has become synonymous with grand, soaring choruses and beats but with “Beyond That Nothing” Benbrick has shown that it can be understated and subtle and still utterly beautiful.
“Beyond That Nothing” is available for free download below and the debut Benbrick EP, Closer | Closure will be out soon.”
WHAT WE RUN TO is the second track taken from the BENBRICK forthcoming EP Closer | Closure; the EP is due for release in 2013.
The following lyric ‘I took a bullet, loaded it with care, aimed with an intent that felt like love’ is taken from John Burnside’s Forward Poetry and T.S. Eliot Prize winning book Black Cat Bone and is used with permission from the author.
Believe in me
Believe in us tonight
If you can’t, how am I to try?
Yeah I’m feeling things that I’ve never felt before
And I’m dreaming things and she tells me there is more
There’s no bright lights in this small city
(I swear it’s never looked so beautiful)
The scene that I’m seeing is so hard to believe in.. You know in that second you find someone but think that you’ve known them a life time?
Yeah you do.
What we run from is what we run to
You keep running, what you running to?
Standing at the top of The Empire State
I take a picture that doesn’t come out right
I say “We need to take it again”
You say “No, cos we’ve got the memories in our heads”
And I know that it’s true, but honestly
I don’t want to forget you
Cos at the back of my mind I know
One day – all this will go
What we run from is what we run to
You keep running, what you running to?
I’ll be by your side
When the world is pulling at the fear in your mind
Yeah, I’ll be there to hold you
And I know it’s crazy but that summer rain felt so much like the sign of something to come
Don’t you think so?
All the things we run from are the things we run to.
What we run from is what we run to
You keep running, what you running to?
I took a bullet, loaded it with care, aimed with an intent that felt like love
