Benevento, by Marco Benevento

Benevento

by Marco Benevento

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Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Includes unlimited streaming of Benevento via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

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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.	Like Me 01:26
2.	Marco And Mimo 03:59		buy track
3.	At The End Or The Beginning 04:59	lyrics	buy track
We can walk and keep our distance The whole world changed in an instant I can’t say I saw it coming. I won’t scream the owl flies above me Will the clouds lift up for us this one time Let me whisper you this dream. . . this dream I had of you. . . that I had of you And it all came true And here we are At the end Or the beginning At the end Or the beginning Read the first word of the headlines It didn’t take you long to realize you wanted something better. . better like the weather . . like heading outside Will the clouds lift up for us this one time Did I finish Telling you about this dream I had . . . . I had of you And it all came true And here we are At the end Or the beginning At the end Or the beginning Golden sun through the blinds ….Touches your face with light Time to wake up…and make up. . live this life why don’t you give it to me …. Will the clouds lift for us . . . . this one time Let me whisper you this dream. . . this dream I had…… I had of you And it all came true Here we are At the end Or the beginning At the end Or the beginning
4.	We Were Here 04:57	lyrics
Maybe it’s the coming, the coming of the night Yeah it’s a sign, yeah it’s a sign of life, a sign of life That brings me back, that brings me back to you. You could show me love, yes show me love And leave as soon, as you have had enough, have had enough That’s all I ask, all I ask of you We need to know, we were here We need to know, we were here. There’s fire breathing, breathing on the wind It’s up to me, it’s up to me to choose and you could be my dream My dream deferred, could be my dream deferred. We need to know. . . know we were here We need to know. . . we were here
5.	Winter Rose 05:22	lyrics	buy track
I saw the teardrop hit the windowpane Even though I know we need the rain I thought the sun could pry me from this pose Well, I was wrong about that If every thorn came With a winter rose Then everything was worth it Yes, I suppose While I slept away They burned the city down And I can read the panic in the braille Even as my senses fail If every thorn came With a winter rose Then everything was worth it Yes, I suppose If every thorn came With a winter rose Then everything was worth it Yes, I suppose
6.	Polysix 00:35
7.	The Warm Up 02:27
8.	Do You Want Some Magic 05:08		buy track
9.	Mountain Cougars 03:33	lyrics	buy track
Theres no real way She taunts to slay The angels sigh Looks at those lies She plays real sweet She looks so fine Tell those guys She walks so fast There’s one more way She wants to stay Till the angels sigh at those eyes She walks to the right, wish you away She walks off stage, wish you away. And you know she’ll take you once And it’s all apart of us And you know she’ll take you twice Better live in paradise And she knows you’ll walk away All while you want to stay As long as you give her And I want to walk away
10.	Ballad Of A Broken Wing 03:28	lyrics	buy track
It’s hard to tell where we have been But I’d go there again I can’t keep track of everything It’s the Ballad Of A Broken Wing
11.	Is This A Dream 03:52

about

This summer, hallucinatory keyboard wizard Marco Benevento pulls back the curtain on his hazy home studio recording with Benevento—40-minutes of small-batch psychedelia bubbled up from the base of the Catskill Mountains.

Titled as a nod to Paul McCartney’s first solo album, the record is a similarly loose, low-key affair. Like Macca’s eponymous release, Benevento is a solo work, where song sketches and sunrise jams share space with more constructed tracks.

With few exceptions—guest percussion from Mamadouba ‘Mimo’ Camara on a handful of songs, and backing vocal appearances by his wife and kids—Benevento played all of the instruments. He also produced and engineered the album, all from Fred Short Studios, located at his Woodstock, NY home.

“This record really acts as a psychedelic window into my studio and my brain,” Benevento says.

Recording was conducted amidst stacks of gear in varying states of repair, all fodder for inspiration during long quarantine-dictated solo jam sessions.

“The studio was a good place to be trapped,” Benevento says. “Surrounded by tape machines and gear. The album started to become this document of a crazy dude losing his mind in the woods — and maybe regaining it.”

Benevento has since decamped to a new, significantly larger, home studio. As such, the album acts as a swan song for—and love letter to—his former workspace.

“Wall-to-wall keyboards, mics, amps, drums, the place was about to explode,” Benevento laughs.

In this environment, Benevento unlocked his archives, mining for unfinished song ideas, and surrendered to the machines, coaxing beats and melodies from both go-to favorites and gear that had long since seen a dusting.

Deeply indebted to the West African psychedelia of artists such as Kiki Gyan, Frances Bebey and William Onyeabor, the songs are rhythmic and repetitive, built into thick mosaics of sound. And each track features at least one keyboard solo, allowing Benevento ample time to explore sounds from the deepest recesses of his studio.

Opener “Like Me” exemplifies the laconic, home-brewed headiness of the album: a minute and a half of sun dappled keys slipping along atop a nodding drum machine groove. “The Warm Up” is the sound of Benevento kicking off his day in the studio, literally warming up with a cup of coffee in hand.

“That’s just me sitting at the piano in the morning, getting the day started, saying alright, let’s play,” he says. “I like that element of just walking into the studio, turning on a keyboard and a drum machine, overdubbing some simple things and thinking maybe that’s done?”

Yet, while a mellow, smoked-out vibe prevails, the album still packs a set of tracks destined to set walls throbbing as Benevento and his band return to clubs this spring and summer.

“Do You Want Some Magic” stomps along with beat-and-keys strut that wouldn’t be out of place on a later-day Beastie Boys record, while “Mountain Cougars” grooves like LCD Soundsystem robo-tripping in a studio that swapped views of skyscrapers for fog-licked mountains. “Marco and Mimo” pits Afro-Caribbean melodic lines and sing-song, ear worm vocals against the bump ’n’ grind of Camara’s percussion.

In contrast to Let It Slide, his minimalistic 2019 full length collaboration with producer Leon Michels, Benevento is heavily saturated and experimental, built from countless layers of keyboards, bounced to 4-track tape.

Lyrics were created in collaboration with Al Howard, a San Diego-based poet. Howard handed over a 10 pages of lyrical sketches which Benevento worked into his tracks, occasionally chopping and mixing the lines, adding in words of his own.

“It was a new thing for me to dive in to—using someone’s lyrics,” Benevento says. “Or, I should say, finding a way to fit someone else’s lyrics into my tunes. I was a bit fed up with my own lyrical ideas, and was immediately drawn to Al’s writing.”

“Winter Rose,” a fizzy, mushroom-dusted slice of sun-flared soul highlights the ease of Benevento and Howard’s collaboration. “If every thorn came with a winter rose / then everything was worth it, yes, I suppose,” Benevento sings as keyboard runs percolate and synth washes sway.

Despite stresses of the global pandemic, the vibe at Fred Short was deeply peaceful and creative as Benevento patiently worked through years of accumulated ideas, lost, as he says, in the wonder of Woodstock. The experience ended up being so inspiring that, in another nod to McCartney, Benevento II is in the works.

“I guess all my records are kind of experimental and weird but this one is really unique,” Benevento says. “Records are just snapshots of time, and this is from a time when it was just me, dialing knobs and making mixes and inventing how things could sound.”

As such, Benevento is sonic time capsule, a wormhole beckoning listeners to enter and explore. Throw away your preconceptions of time and space and dive in.

credits

released June 10, 2022

Produced by Marco Benevento
Engineered by Marco Benevento
Recorded at Fred Short Studios
Mixed by Chris Connors
Mastered by Alex DeTurk

All Songs Written & Performed by Marco Benevento
Lyrics by Al Howard & Marco Benevento on Tracks 3, 4, 5 & 10
Mac Bene Publishing (ASCAP) / administered by Downtown DLJ Songs (ASCAP)

Additional Vocals by Ruby Benevento & Katie Benevento
Additional Percussion by Mamadouba ‘Mimo’ Camara on “Marco and Mimo,” “Winter Rose” & “Mountain Cougars”

Designed by High Tide NYC
Cover Photograph by Seth Olenick

Management by Kevin Calabro
Released by Royal Potato Family

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about

Marco Benevento Brooklyn, New York

For more than a decade pianist Marco Benevento has been amassing an extensive body of work. His studio albums and live performances set forth a vision that connects the dots in the vast space between LCD Soundsystem and Leon Russell, pulsating with dance rock energy, but with smart, earthy songwriting to match. ... more

marcobenevento.com

shows

Jul 13

Bourbon Ballroom

Atlantic City, NJ

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