The British musician chats with the Rocket Man about his latest compilation ‘Collections From The Whiteout.’

Elton John asked in the interview when Howard wrote the songs from ‘Collections From The Whiteout,‘ “it’s, I think your third number one album in Britain, but it’s just a beautiful collection of songs. And I’m ignorant about how it came about. It says ‘Collections From The Whiteout’, were these songs written in lockdown and recorded in lockdown or before?”

The indie singer-songwriter responded, “No it predated lockdown, really. I was doing trips to upstate New York and getting in a studio up there, which is a trip in itself, that part of the world. But yeah, it kind of predated everything. Me and Aaron Dessner were just working on music together and yeah, obviously everything spiralled out of control after that. But yeah, we were just collecting a lot of different songs over probably 18 months.”

When asked by the British icon what the importance of the choice of producer was to the album’s compilation, Howard responded, “he’s just great at allowing you that freedom to explore strange ideas that perhaps you wouldn’t give the time of day yourself. He’s never scared of the muse and allowing it to be whatever and be quite free with the music until it’s time to track things I suppose. And then yeah, I think one key one was he turned my vocals up. I was getting lost in a deep world of reverbs for years. I think I was going further down that path and he dragged me back to somewhere audible.”

Ben Howard previously described his latest album to Apple Music, which was released last March, as “trying to find stories and tales that interlink with our own feelings and our own capacity,” He continued: “I’ve always felt I’ve been a little misguided in trying to explain the time that I live in, but you’re supposed to; you’re trying to explain yourself in these little moments.” The Richmond born artist announced the release of his album via a live stream from Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall.

Elton John has had a star line-up for his ‘Rocket Hour’ so far, including British stars Olly Alexander, Yung Blood, RAY BLK and Jessie Ware. The series, which has been running for the past few years and has over 300 episodes, sees John interview a range of artists, play his favourite tunes and discuss the music industry past and present.

Howard is set to tour ‘Collections From The Whiteout’ this September and has recently been added to Cornwall’s Eden Sessions, among other UK artists McFly, Snow Patrol and The Script.

You can listen to Elton John’s interview with Ben Howard and other episodes of ‘Rocket Hour’ on Apple Music 1.

Ben Howard recently took to his Instagram to share the video for ‘Finders Keepers’, taken from ‘Collections From The Whiteout’.

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The singer songwriter’s recent number one album, ‘Collections From The Whiteout’ has become vastly popular in independent record shops as the best-selling album. Howard’s recent release is also topping the Official Vinyl Albums Chart. The album’s lead single, ‘What a Day’ premiered on 26th January 2021 on Annie Mac’s show on BBC Radio 1. The album’s second single entitled ‘Crowhurst’s Meme’ was released on 2nd February 2021, third single ‘Far Out’ and fourth single ‘Follies Fixture’ were both released on 26th February 2021 with the fifth and final single, ‘Sorry Kid’ premiering on Annie Mac’s show on 22nd March 2021.

‘Collections From The Whiteout’ follows Howard’s previous album, ‘Noonday Dream’, which was released on 1st June 2018. Much like Howard’s singles from ‘Collections From The Whiteout’, ‘A Boat To An Island On The Wall’ taken from the singer’s third studio album, debuted on the BBC 1 radio show, Annie Mac. The show also featured the announcement of Howard’s 2018 UK tour dates. ‘Noonday Dream’ and Howard’s 2011 release ‘Every Kingdom’, both reached number four in the UK charts.

This is not the first success in Howard’s decade long career, in 2013 the singer won two BRIT awards, for British Breakthrough Act and British Solo Male Artist. He was also nominated for a Mercury prize in 2012, for his debut album ‘Every Kingdom’, released on 30th September 2011. The debut’s first single ‘The Wolves’ and album track ‘These Waters’, were both re-recordings of original tracks taken from Howard’s EP ‘These Waters’ released on 7th July 2009.

Howard will perform in a live-streamed event from Goonhilly Earth Station, ready to watch on 8th April 2021. Click here to buy tickets.

Ben Howard Tour Dates

08/04/2021 – Goonhilly Earth Station – Livesteam
07/09 – Boiler Shop – Newcastle
08/09 – The Queen’s Hall – Edinburgh
09/09 – Trinity – Bristol
13/09 – Brudenell Social Club – Leeds
15/09 – Pryzm – Kingston
18/09 – Royal Festival Hall – London
19/09 – Royal Festival Hall – London

With each album, the Brit Award-winner continues to distance himself from the conventional folk sound of his 2011 debut ‘Every Kingdom’, moving away from the acoustic arrangements and pastoral lyrical themes that helped to popularise him. Over the past ten years, the 33-year-old’s music has consistently displayed increasingly experimental musical arrangements and lyrical content, with ‘Collections From The Whiteout’ undoubtedly being Howard’s most fully realised example of this to date.

The most distinctive sonic aspect of the album is its incorporation of electronic musical elements. Tracks such as ‘Finder’s Keepers’, ‘Sage That She Was Burning’, and ‘Crowhurst’s Meme’ feature electronic drum patterns, synthesizers, and heavily distorted guitar riffs, which the singer-songwriter has never previously made extensive use of. These musically dense tracks are also complemented by instrumentally stripped-back tracks, such as ‘Rookery’ and ‘Buzzard’, where Howard allows his expressive songwriting to take centre-stage.

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The musical experimentation and diversity we see on ‘Collection From The Whiteout’ perhaps owes to the collaborative nature of the project. Unlike his three previous albums, where the artist exclusively collaborated with the same small group of musicians, Howard opened the door to a brand-new range of collaborators for this new LP. Most notably, the Totnes-based singer-songwriter linked up with The National’s Aaron Dessner, who recently worked on Taylor Swift’s Grammy Award-winning and critically acclaimed indie folk album ‘Folklore’.

With nine production credits on the album, Howard has been very vocal about the impact that Dessner had on the creation of the album in the lead-up to its release. In a heartfelt message to Howard, Dessner himself took to Instagram today to speak about the process of making the album, saying, “What started as a relaxed experiment became one of my favorite creative processes and records I’ve ever been part of… I couldn’t be more proud of what we made.”

Thematically, ‘Collection From The Whiteout’ often alternates between historical anecdotes and personal snapshots. Whilst ‘Crowhurst’s Meme’ and ‘The Strange Last Flight of Richard Russell’ explore the tragic real-life stories of voyagers who ended up dead, ‘Finders Keepers’ describes the story of a friend of Howard’s father finding a dismembered corpse in a suitcase floating along the Thames.

Whilst discussing the often morbid themes of his new LP with the Independent, Howard explained, “We live in a macabre time. There’s so much doom and gloom happening constantly. It’s more the way we engage with it that I’m interested in.” Indeed, rather than simply being the archetypal gloomy singer-songwriter, Howard is often doing something far more subtle than many may give him credit for in his music. ‘Collection From The Whiteout’ perfectly exemplifies this, oscillating between minor and major tones, moving between feelings of sorrow and relief seamlessly.

‘Collections From The Whiteout’ is available to stream below:

Almost three years on from the release of his most recent album ‘Noonday Dream’, Howard has been very active in promoting his forthcoming LP. The 33-year-old has recently shared ‘Variations Volume 1 – Far Out’ on his YouTube channel, a re-working of his previously released single ‘Far Out’. The new variation of the track is more vocal-driven and features altered guitar riffs and added delay effects. Howard often provides fans with these sorts of musical add-ons; for instance, he has always been an artist that changes musical arrangements and even adds verses for live performances.

The singer-songwriter undoubtedly takes great care in cultivating his musical aesthetic, something that you can see even through the merchandise bundles on his website. Alongside a variety of album-themed customised clothing, Vinyl, CD, and Cassette versions of ‘Collections From The Whiteout’ are available as part of these bundles, revealing Howard’s real appreciation for vintage musical mediums and the album format itself.

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The global livestream transmission from Goonhilly Earth Station offers merely another example of Howard’s view of music as an entire artistic experience. It is described on the website as “[a]n exclusive one-off livestreaming event to celebrate the release of the new album, Collections from the Whiteout.” Whilst this suggests that the performance is likely to be largely comprised of new material from his forthcoming album, Howard may also intersperse the set with some of his classic songs; songs that his fans can sing along to at home to temporarily alleviate the struggle of continuing social restrictions.

Given that the event is taking place from a satellite earth station, we should expect something very special from the Brit Award-winning singer-songwriter. Notably, Goonhilly Earth Station is on the Lizard Penisula in Cornwall, not too far from where Howard grew up in Totnes. A return to his Southwestern stomping ground should provide the perfect backdrop for the singer’s highly anticipated return to music.

Tickets for the virtual event will go on general sale on March 19th via www.benhowardmusic.co.uk and UK fans will be able to tune into the concert from 8pm GMT on April 8th.

Here are the full details for watching the live-streamed performance across different global time zones:

UK & Europe: Thursday 8th April – London (8pm BST), Paris (9pm CEST)
East Coast North America & South America: Thursday 8th April – New York (8pm EDT)
West Coast North America & Central America: Thursday 8th April – LA (8pm PDT)
Australasia & South East Asia: Friday 9th April – Tokyo/Sydney (7pm JST / 8pm AEST)

As with his two previous singles, Howard’s new tracks reflect his distinctive brand of dreamy indie folk that first appeared on his now double-platinum debut album ‘Every Kingdom’ nearly ten years ago. The Totnes-based vocalist has continued to develop this distinctive folk sound and these new promotional singles provide no exception to that rule.

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Comprised mostly of disparate, poetic images intertwined together, ‘Follies Fixture‘ illustrates the increasingly surrealist nature of Howard’s lyricism. Accordingly, Howard’s lyrics throughout the song are often both cryptic and minimalist, as demonstrated in the song’s pre-chorus: “Fox, hare, kestrel skull/ The movement large/ The weather dull/ Pick again until the cards can form our meaning.” Whilst discussing the track’s subject matter in a press release, the singer-songwriter explained, “’Follies Fixture’ is a love song. It deals with an apathetic period of my life searching for routine in Paris.” Notably, the autobiographical single is also the opening track on ‘Collections From The Whiteout’, and thus may set the scene for some of Howard’s most personal material to date on his upcoming album.

‘Far Out’ similarly exhibits the 33-year-old’s characteristically poetic song writing but does so against the backdrop of a completely different soundscape. As opposed to the stripped-back instrumental and arpeggiated synths of ‘Follies Fixture’, ‘Far Out’ is driven by expansive instrumentation and swirling guitar riffs. In a press statement, Howard described both the inspiration and meaning of ‘Far Out’: “The song is essentially a critique of how easily people are drawn to violence and animosity without reason, just to pass the time. And ultimately how there is perhaps a simpler, more fulfilling path. I wanted it to have a very British rhyming slang feel and a Roald Dahl sense of macabre humour.” Filled with sharp-witted lyrics that feel as if they could have been lifted from a British post-war novel, the track undoubtedly succeeds in creating the effect that Howard intended it to. Perhaps the best example of this is Howard’s pithy description of a bemoaning grave digger: ““Time to make a new plan”/ Said the gravedigger man/ “How am I to make a killing/ What with all of this living?/ It’s abysmal the state of the union.””

 

 

 

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Alongside the release of ‘Follies Fixture’ and ‘Far Out’, Howard announced two London shows at the Royal Festival Hall on September 18^th and 19^th 2021. It will be the singer’s first time playing in London since selling out four consecutive nights at the O2 Brixton Academy in January 2019. Tickets for the shows are scheduled to go on sale on March 5^th via www.benhowardmusic.co.uk.

Howard stated that the new offering is based off a famous story of a sailor who died whilst attempting to sail around the ocean alone. He said, ‘This song was firstly inspired by a wonky synth guitar part that I had which had a kind of seasick quality to it, which in my head had a tenuous link to the Donald Crowhurst story – the famous tale of the amateur British sailor who died whilst sailing around the world. These two things seemed to marry and so it became a sort of exploration of the undocumented universal side of the story.’

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The track itself is different from Howard’s previous releases, including ‘What a Day’ that dropped in January 2021. Whilst his calming vocals are as distinguishable as ever, the ‘wonky synth guitar part’, off-beat drums and bass give an overall feeling of the track being slightly sinister and hauntingly poetic. Howard sings ‘When I wake up / I’m a long way out’ repetitively for the chorus, detailing back to the link between having a ‘seasick quality’ and the tragic sea story of Crowhurst.

The British Businessman, Donald Crowhurst, competed in The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968. From the beginning of the race, Crowhurst had reportedly given false claims of his position and ambiguous radio reports, with 3 months silence between January to April 1969. His log book was found adrift, which was examined and showed Crowhurst to be suffering from paranoia and psychotic disorder. Due to his false reports, there was a high chance of him winning the prize of being the fastest sailor meaning the world was watching him and cheering him on. Many researchers believed this to be the sailors downfall, that the fraudulence had caught up with him and his mental stability. Yachting World stated about the voyage, ‘For, as anyone who has sailed out of sight of land knows, the sea has a knack of bringing out our inner demons. There is a Crowhurst in us all.’  To learn more, Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall wrote a biography on this voyage which can be bought here.

The lyricism of Howard’s track depict this tragic story of Crowhurst’s demise. Lyrics such as ‘found a radio silence’, and perhaps the most obvious, ‘And they’ll murder me/ If I come back winning / Yeah they’ll murder me’, could depict the sailors tale, how if his deception was revealed his reputation and more would be lost. In an Instagram post, Howard shared a picture of the Teignmouth Electron, the boat that Crowhurst sailed in. 

 

 

 

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The track will feature on Howard’s new album, which is said to be his “most fully realised to date”.

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Ben also announced his fourth album Collections From The Whiteout which is set to be released on the 26th of March via Island Records. The record is co-produced by Ben and Aaron Dessner from The National. Aaron Dessner recently co-produced Taylor Swift’s sister albums Folklore and Evermore.

The song was accompanied by a music video, directed by Cloe Bailly. The video depicts hunters getting drunker and drunker while one of them is turning into a rabbit. The rabbit seems to be the instigator of pure carnage as the hunters begin to turn their guns on each other.

Speaking about the video, Ben said; “This was a nonsense idea loosely thrown together on the Old English rhyme, ‘back to back they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other’ with a bit of animal hysteria thrown in. Cloe somehow transformed a basic countryside shoot ‘em up into an amazing tale of delightful retribution.”

What A Day is out now on all platforms. Collections From The Whiteout will be released on March 26th 2021. The music video for What A Day is down below