It just might be the case that percussionist and producer Ben Sloan, has waited a bit too long to come up with muted colors, his solo debut. After all, he has so far played with the likes of The National, Moses Sumney, Beth Orton, Mouse on Mars, Rozi Plain, Serengeti, and WHY?
Still, if he took his time to make sure that he comes up with some innovative, genre-bending music that works, as it does on this album, then it doesn’t matter how much time it took him to do it, since he did it, after all.
The album includes quite a few guests Sloan already worked with from Sumney, Serengeti, Liz, and Josiah Wolf of WHY?, to Felicia Douglass of Dirty Projectors. Yet, the album doesn’t work simply because it has some better-known, cutting-edge artists.
It works because Sloan came up himself with some truly cutting-edge music that moves anywhere from drum and bass to futuristic R&B and hip hop with touches on everything from jazz to any type of avant-garde.
“The album is something of an abstracted diary,” says Sloan. “Each track is a vignette, a little colorful, sensational world to briefly indulge.”
And that is exactly how this album works – with some of those ‘vignettes’ being truly brief, while others take a few more minutes to develop their intricacy.
Definitely one of the more innovative albums so far this year.
