After three years have passed since the release of his album, Noonday Dream, the renowned British singer-songwriter Ben Howard releases the highly anticipated Collections From The Whiteout. For the first time with his projects, Howard opened the doors for collaboration, bringing on a team of players to help with production and other aspects of the album. Included among his collaborators are Bon Iver/Laura Marling collaborator Rob Moose, This is the Kit, Big Thief, Dayes, and last but certainly not least, The National’s Aaron Dessner. In celebration of the project’s release, Howard also conducted a global Livestream event, marking the first performance seen from the band since the conclusion of the worldwide tour at the beginning of 2019. Read more of the Livestream performance here.
As Howard began the creation of the project, he traveled between New York, Devon, and Paris. Here, he orchestrated the project in a state of transience that brought forth a perspective on his songwriting, bound as a collection of inspiration from his previous projects. With the influences of his collaborators, Ben Howard delivers a truly substantial record that stands uniquely strong as a sonic adventure.
The ambiance of Ben Howard’s aesthetic from Noonday Dream is captured and carried smoothly to the first song of this project and keeps true through the entire record. Beginning with “Follies and Fixtures”in a state of impermanence, Howard opens up through poetic genius about an apathetic period in his life. While searching for routine and in Belleville Paris, he writes a love song;
. . . The movement large the weather dull
Ben Howard; Follies and Fixtures
Picking again until the cards can form our meaning
Looking out on a Belleville crowd,
You are the follies fixture
Looking out on a Belleville crowd,
Never knew how much I have missed you
“What a Day,” the second track in this full-length LP, offers an actual comforting presence to the chemical brain, a pattern seen with every trace of his work. However, within Howard’s video and track lies a more profound meaning inspired by pragmatism and left up to the audience for further introspection. Ben Howard shares in an Apple Music Interview,
“It’s loosely based on a walk in the countryside with an old friend of mine. We were talking clumsily about existentialism and had a great sort of pain that hung between us, and that’s really what the song was born from. I’d always come back to that imagery of the British countryside. It was a really crisp blue sky that only those really remote parts of the world have when it’s blindingly white. Ultimately, that’s what the imagery is based on. I suppose it does document a relationship in a gentle way.”
Ben Howard; Apple Music
Find more about the release of this track in our article; Ben Howard Breaks Silence with New Release . . .
The existential ideas and clear-cut vision of Howard’s interpretive “Finder’s Keepers” captures an effect of philosophy. Although Howard admits that the story was intentionally written as a rather one-dimensional concept, it leaves room for further poetic intention that many listeners certainly have picked up on. The song, partnered with a colorful visual masterpiece, allows audiences can get lost in the sound and story-telling of the lost man who followed a suitcase downriver.
What’s that in the river?
Ben Howard; Finders Keepers
That suitcase, that wheel
Floating
What’s that in the river?
That suitcase, that pearl
I was asking for you
What’s that in the river?
That suitcase, that floating thing
Somewhere in mind
“Sorry Kid,” yet another masterpiece of Howards within the Collections From The Whiteout, is an expression for those who watch the world pass by, and for those who lose themselves in the interpretation of lyrics. Howard, for this track, intended the message to be carried through the emotions tied to the beat and the sound. However, like any true artist, he leaves the door open for listeners to get lost in the simplistic and observational lyricism.
As one of the most notable productions to date, Howard certainly captures the hearts and emotions of fans with the new project. Whether the track’s intentions are for audiences to dig deeper and grasp for other meaning or for the song to allow the listeners to be caught up in a sound, Ben Howard continues to impress. Collections From The Whiteout continues his legacy, leaving his mark as one of the UK’s most inventive and naturally talented artists of his time.
“We’re all trying to find stories and tales that interlink with our own feelings and our own capacity. 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.”
Ben Howard; Apple Music
Ben Howard’s latest masterpiece, Collections From The Whiteout, is available now on all platforms.
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