Finger, Benjamin – “Bet, The” – [Watery Starve Press]

Naysayer   1/26/2015   12-inch, A Library

Benjamin Finger, Norwegian sound sculptor collagist, photographer, film maker and pianist, has a new album called “The Bet”. Put out through Watery Starve Press, the micro press, “The Bet” is their first LP “publication” and what a smart move to start with this work. On this release, Finger delves into sounds taking the listener on a journey of dreamlike proportion. Whispering, scratches and clicks, indecipherable voices, electronic tones and hums, background recordings of the ephemera of nature and cities, piano tinklings, plucked metal strings, humming and singing voices, items struck, almost tunes??? this is a work of epic proportion which feels very small and personal, like a fever dream. If only my fever dreams sounded like this. Other reviews have referenced Alice falling down the rabbit hole or getting lost in a building of endless windows and doors and opening each which leads to another secret space. Those both work also. However you feel it, describe it, sense it, experience it, all should agree??? Benjamin Finger knows what he is doing. There is a level of sophistication to this production which blows away so many other sound collagists who try to do the same thing. Yet it does not sound larger than, cold, or overdone. It is so warm and comfortably uncomfortable. Listeners will wonder how this crawled into their head. Crawl on in.