The secret to Ben Eastman‘s music is that he doesn’t simply make music that fits his chosen theme but instead uses such sonic strands to build, describe, and fully inhabit the world he has envisaged. Some makers of instrumental music might be happy to make a rough soundtrack that fits their purpose, but Ben is more exacting than that. Having taken the title UFO for this latest album, and with nothing but the music to guide the listener, he describes scenes and scenarios, asks questions, and meets our imagination halfway.
First Contact is a pensive piece, blending the wonder of the unknown with the dangers and responsibility associated with the meetings of such unacquainted races. It is a cautious affair; the guitar riff seems to ask probing questions but does so gently, sounding out the potential and possibility that lies before us.
But for those not already familiar with his work, Imminent Danger, Pts 1 & 2 really shows us what Ben is capable of. This piece is full of brooding intensity, the wandering saxophone adding a taste of the midnight hour and a late-night loneliness to the track as the guitar coils around and recoils from what lies before it. The bass line has the same eerie qualities Jeff Wayne found in it on his classic album The War of the Worlds, and clashing chords speak of unknown menace.
And onwards through the exotic encounter—Signs of Life has a pulse, a heartbeat; it is the living, breathing thing that the title suggests. The Void’s languid and drifting ways describe…well, what do they describe? The vastness of space? The antiquity of the culture being encountered? The unknown? The other? Who knows? All we know is that there is a scope and scale to the music that dwarfs the listener.
Things end in a seemingly positive place, the buoyancy of Time Traveller suggesting optimism and adventure. This might be a step into the unknown, but it is taken with a sense of the sanguine. The beats are up, the riffs full of cheer, the step light, the future bright.
Ben Eastman doesn’t just make music; he tells stories. Sonic stories. Even when those tales seem tall and unbelievable and out of this world, the music that guides us is such that it is presented to us in vivid clarity.