NONOSTAR SESSION #2 Ben Osborn – Tangles
NONOSTAR SESSION #2 Ben Osborn – Tangles is available at YouTube. Letters from the Border @ Bandcamp.
by Walter Price
2021 is starting off on a delicate foot. Following a year of turbulence and disenchantment, it’s fitting that songwriter/composer Ben Osborn releases a live performance of his 2019 track “Tangles”. Joined by Hannah von Hübbenet and Alex Stolze for the Nonostar Sessions concert series, this song is about transformation in the midst of pain. And to watch von Hübbenet use her violin as an instrument of soft punctuation and Stolze groove to the somber cinematic lyrics of Osborn, it really makes the viewer miss the emotional connection a live show can have on one’s self.
Osborn gave the GTC a little backstory, “It’s a song from my first album, “Letters from the Border.” I hoped to make a second this year but Covid-related restrictions threw life somewhat upside down. The place we recorded the video is a part of the Nonostar Records building, which also houses the studio where I recorded the album – a wild remote location on the German-Polish border.
“The song talks about trying to push through sorrow; the final image has the sorrow reform as music, a nightingale’s song. I don’t know if that’s the best or the worst way to deal with sorrow. Perhaps a little of both.”
NONOSTAR SESSION #2 Ben Osborn – Tangles
Video and camera by Andrea Huyoff
Piano, Vocals, Electronics – Ben Osborn
Violin – Hannah v. Hübbenet
Quintone – Alex Stolze
Artist foto by Andrea Huyoff
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“Channeling Leonard Cohen-esque balladry, Ben draws also from electronica, folk and 20th-century art music. Ethereal string sections rise and fade, Björk-like beats skitter, Erik Satie piano chords drift into view: in less capable hands it might sound miscellaneous, but he weaves his disparate influences into textural tapestries that sound like nobody but him.” – bio