'Brainflood' EP by Ben Monkhouse

Back in May 2022 I received an excited message from John Rivers at Woodbine Studio: he was recording a young musician about whom he was so excited that he felt I ought to meet him & place him upon the "Hot Music Live" radar. Well with all John's experience, you can imagine that we wouldn't have sent that lightly.

Fortunately I was free & popped over & met & heard Ben Monkhouse play.

That was over two years ago & I've been storing the idea of an article up all that time.

I really believe that young artists should be allowed the space & time to develop and therefore bide my time knowing that this moment would eventually arrive (though interestingly I see that he released three singles: "Ride the Wave", "Butterfly Dreams" and "Haribo Rings" last year which escaped my vigilance.)

And so the occasion of its arrival as far as you (as readers) & I are concerned is the release of his debut EP, 'Brainflood'. The constituent tracks are: "Brainflood", "Pretty Cool", "Too Much TV" and "You Get Your Way Every Time". And he's still only nineteen (and studying Music and Audio production at Coventry University.)

The first thing you are going to notice I suspect about the four songs (and this was my first impression back in 2022) might well be his skill on the guitar (and I understand that he's a pianist also). If taking his time has included developing technical virtuosity into a confident personal style, then again this was time well spent. His own website cites folk, pop & R&B as elements in his playing, but there's jazz in there too I can assure you.

Alongside this, he's achieved a parallel effect with his voice: hitting that tricky balance where he delivers an individual style but doesn't cross the line into the area of false mannerism: so one might imagine hours of practice & experiment yet also that more elusive talent: taste & judgement.

The outcome are idiosyncratic songs which help define him as a distinct artist, yet come across as natural articulations of what he wants to say to us.

This turns out to be "…journeys through the human experience, exploring themes of love, heartbreak, personal growth and social commentary…" which is quite a range and here we have areas examined similar to ones Ellie Gowers has in her songs such as "Against the Tide": concerns about the technologies of contemporary life being caustic towards genuine human interaction. So he's not just been refining his skills, he's been doing a lot of profound reflecting too.

He talks too about "narratives to be felt" which is interesting:  his aim is one of genuine emotional connection ("to leave a lasting impact.") via a process of empathising with others. No wonder he gets sceptical about alienation creeping in through supposedly progressive developments. (and it's worth emphasising at this point that these observations are also shaped by having listened to those earlier singles too).

There is a thread here of yearning for simpler, more emotionally & communally connected times yet this is not an exercise in nostalgia: it's a recognition of wrong turns taken and a desire to get back to the right road: the production is sharp & contemporary, not a retro styling.

For a man who writes sometimes as if he's overwhelmed, the sound contrasts: he comes across as self-composed and putting his thought across with cool articulation.

I think Ben is a most interesting new voice in our local song writing scene: I wonder how long it will be before he is part of a wider one?