poise

bensnburner, the one-man band evolved into an ever-rotating and expanding hive mind initially conceived and realised by the bassist and producer Ben Krahl in 2012, are releasing their new full-length poise under the moniker bunsenburner via the conglomerate-esque band’s leader’s own bensnburner records on December 9th 2022.

While bensnburner as a project at first started as a bedroom project, Krahl quickly found himself amassing other likeminded world class musicians around him to tap into the most profound source of his vision and to fully obtain and convey the project’s essence in its grandest nature. While the act’s previous releases already digress beyond all imaginable genre-related thresholds and have their solid places in the act’s continuum, poise by its appearance and aesthetic, is the project’s most refined and musically pervasive effort to date. Stretching its canvas across a multitude of musical leanings rarely united and painting a labyrinthine image to its surface with brush strokes ranging from the cogent and mountain-movingly strong to the utmost delicate and feather light ones, somehow bunsenburner still manages to make absolute sense.

Don’t mistake these words as intimidating or daunting in the slightest either; if anything, poise is a masterclass in molding the most complex and serpentine ingredients into a palpable and enjoyable form.

Now made up of renowned musician from worlds of metal and jazz, the sextet’s twelve-song barrage of uncompromising ebb and flow artistry was recorded live with a full band setting without prior arrangements or later overdubs at huji maja Studios in Freiburg, South Germany, within the span of three days this past June, with the result being a holistic journey through the vast and vibrant, uncompromisingly lush and oftentimes jaw-droppingly surprising soundscapes of the band’s creation.

As a noteworthy addition, poise also draws singular character from the inclusion of what Krahl calls ”found sounds”, meaning utilizing various records Ben himself found from the streets and brought in, ran from a turntable to an effect pedal chain. The inclusion of existing sounds, albeit ran through a figurative meatgrinder, is an important factor on poise, providing further twist into the album’s already convoluted nature.