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Dispeller

by Ben Woods

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Black and white marble colored vinyl.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Dispeller via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 5 days
    edition of 550  36 remaining
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      $24.99 USD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    CD in gatefold card case.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Dispeller via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $9.99 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

1.
Fame 03:03 video
Fame You know you’ve always had it made I never knew someone could make such strange mistakes when they’re just trying to get away A trade I guess I’ve seen a few this way You close your eyes and hold the hands of what you made You sleep and others hold the shame But waiting out at night All the dreams that we knew Have all been kissed aside Nothings following you Back tonight They all thought you’d be alright I saw your eyes and wondered if you finally knew Your strengths aren’t always up to you
2.
Trace Reel 03:51
Traced but not noted endlessly Moving — my history inside me Pacing, they feel it in their backs Brewing all their convoluted fat I’d like to chew, but not only just to lose or prove Tasteless — I know you’re bored Reeling with your overstated facts Well I’ll give you that just to keep the rest of it back It runs them down — the past keeps moving around
3.
The Strip 05:16
The toes bend, they’re bloodless This evening seemed loveless It’s freezing, we’re headless White flowing, town closing Time floated, you notice On flat earth with no compass The ground here’s so restless We broke when it birthed us Hope that all the people in this city Will rest well holding all their indecision And drink all the more they drive Keep living free, but I’m not going out tonight I wander to some place I felt Something new in tired hell It’s gurgling, the street I know The ageless wind on these flash new walls Stop all of your fighting, little sprits Beneath is all your trying—they can hear it Life’s architecture’s dying You bereave, but it’s coming back for another night
4.
Teething 05:18
No appeals and no surprises for someone All your fields are left to prying for sun Feels your laying down for no-one Could it matter where you’re going, when it’s done? I don’t know it well Your sweet face seems to show I don’t know it well How you keep faith for them still growing Biding feelings and a few more seasons to come Saw them grieving from like a magazine – still nothing’s won You saw them teething under light still feeding what you loved Kindness breeding under times unreason – that’s what you’ve done I don’t know them well All these traces left to show I don’t know you well But you keep faith for them still growing
5.
He pulls the seams Shouts through his heave Bears no relief Fosters the grief And takes apart his parents pictures–we know that blood that’s given gives in time They won’t believe What they don’t see Bent over knee To the belt that speaks And tastes of heat and your own fingers – the lesson that he gives he gives one time Tied to their seats With slow defeat They pass the lead Big dog to feed The sound of every TV dinner stop cooking gives the proper sense of time Now he can see Those who sucked the teat Remembered all their dreams And fell out of the scene Now he beats his dog like he beat the children knowing everything he could be hangs after life
6.
I buried the bread that I threw to the hounds I buried the bread that I threw to you hounds Why say stop? When my body I'm giving They bend to no end to appease half the town They bend ’til they break to appease half the town Why would they shut, when the bodies lay empty? Why'd you say stop, when my body I’m giving? I lead them away to peruse in their gowns I lead them away because I knew I had drowned Why would I drop? The body’s the plot Why would they shut, when the bodies lay empty? Why’d you say stop, when my body I’m giving? I float through the air, through the rooms, through the house So tangled and bare and prepared on the couch Why would I doubt? My body has risen Why would I drop? The body’s the plot Why would they shut, when the bodies lay empty? Why’d you say stop, when my body I’m giving?
7.
Sugar cup I need you wholly, please just stitch me up I cannot feel my breathing or my luck Please just hold me up in time Little thing I wouldn’t think to wear only one ring But you know there’s got to be a price for things How will I know you’re all mine? 
Lock me up Leave me freezing or just shut me up You know I’ll bleed for you just give me some- thing to show that I’m divine You want divine? If i can’t see you now with my own eyes How am I going to keep my faith this time You want divine—it’s when we die I wanna try But all these chains can only do so much I want to give you all my love I’ll start by giving you my life
8.
Taste it on the ground I will conceive of what’s buried way down And show it with my hands As if I just held you to bury the stench Your house is alive when it’s night It whispers to me “you’re the punishing type” I’ve washed my arms, shaved my hair And found those cruel words exist just in my head I’m tired of taking comfort in no meaning Put all of our bodies for sale I’m tired of feeling what you keep revealing I ask you to fill this human shell I’m tired of taking comfort in no meaning Send all that you’ve given to hell I know that you’re tired of my weighted feeling Watch them bloat ’til they can’t stand
9.
Great fever’s locked I know Back from the top you go Clutching at ribbons, you’ve got your own schism alone I’ve got a prison made of porcelain embedded with gold And drenched in all that’s mighty And dressed in all our symmetry And pressed so hard for a change We’ll walk away, but then we’ll go “See you again, see all of you again - so it goes” Whispers the friend, the decorated figure up the wall Dressed in white leather, he turns all of your love into a hole Where all our debt sits in water and turns out to mould Drenched in all that’s mighty And dressed in all our symmetry And pressed so hard for a change We’ll walk away, but then we’ll go

about

On Dispeller, Woods’ intimate experiments in rock paint a vivid portrait. Here, the New Zealand artist leans comfortably into intuition and abstraction. Expansive arrangements are anchored by heavy-lidded prose, while carrying the air of the portside shack it was made in.

Dispeller was recorded throughout a year in Woods’ hometown, Lyttelton, with Ben Edwards (Aldous Harding, Marlon Williams, Julia Jacklin) at the helm of the mixing console and co-producing. Utterings, footsteps, and the rattles of the room linger beneath the album’s dense instrumentation, alluding to the familiar space the songs were captured in. Here, Woods’ songs breathe and flourish into their own worlds. “I found my voice in trying to make atonality croon,” he says. “With Dispeller it was less about harmony — the blend was capturing the songs very honestly in the room, and still making each of them to transport you somewhere different.”

Even beside Woods’ acclaimed debut, PUT (2019), which saw him sharing stages with Aldous Harding, No Age, Julia Jacklin and, Steve Gunn, Dispeller enchants. The songs here are stronger, the instrumentation stranger. Hovering At Home features mangled tape machine interjections and manipulated sax. Clusters of unsettling piano tip ‘Teething' toward the surreal. With chopped and screwed vocal contributions from underground hero Alastair Galbraith, ‘Speaking Belt’ snaps and pulses with the sordid clatter of a lost Xpressway single. Charlotte Forrester from Womb (Flying Nun) adds their diaphanous voice to The Strip and Punishing Type. On fragile duet Wearing Divine, Lucy Hunter (Opposite Sex / Wet Specimen) threatens to steal the limelight, before a full hive of Marlon Williams’ honeyed vibrato comes spluttering out of what sounds like a rusted can.

Woods' melodies bring to mind Scott Walker's dramatic tunefulness, while his voice holds something of Gordon Gano's waver, pushed through New Zealand vowel mangling. Dispeller's arrangements hit at the subtle, reactive instrumentation of late-era Fugazi, the glowing murk of Grouper, the Antipodean-gothic drudge of Tall Dwarfs, and the mechanical outer crust of Sparklehorse. However, while Woods experiments with the disparate and the disharmonious, it is the open heart which elevates Dispeller. His voice holds the physical and spiritual middle; flirting with, but never succumbing to the splendour and turmoil which surround it.

credits

released May 15, 2022

Produced by Ben Edwards and Ben Woods
All songs by Ben Woods

All instruments performed by Ben Woods, except:

Charlotte Forrester - vocals on tracks 3 & 8
Alastair Galbraith - tape loop vocals on track 5
Matt Davis - horns on track 6
Lucy Hunter - vocals on track 7
Marlon Williams - tape choir on track 7
Ryan Chin - lap steel on track 7

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Ben Woods Christchurch, New Zealand

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