Artist
The Ax and the Oak is Weaver's 6th album at the ripe old age of
29; it is by far his most adventurous to date. Weaver explains, "The
majority of this record was written in Berlin, the summer of 2007. I
was staying in a friend's flat in Prenzlauer Berg.
I had many pictures
in my head at that time. This record is not about Berlin, but about
what being in Berlin allowed me to create." Produced by Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Iron & Wine),
the album juxtaposes electronic musical sounds with warm acoustic
instruments with textural results that defy the usual expectations of
the singer/songwriter genre. It's hard to argue with the
results—evocative, hushed songs that illuminate Ben's affinity for the
natural world of birds, phone booths, empty parking lots, strangers in
the checkout line, plastic bags stuck in trees and whatever else
typically goes unnoticed in the sidewalk cracks.A former Casket
Company warehouse is Weaver's current world headquarters. Multitudinous
organs, synthesizers, guitars, a sampler, a piano, a dog, Polaroid
cameras, sketch books, New Yorker back issues, boxes of CDs and a
PowerBook mark the territory. There is an air of controlled chaos and
the musty smell of old tube amps. Weaver writes continuously, a process
perhaps more akin to breathing than composing, "I have always
identified with those people who make art because they have to, that
sense of necessity and urgency. That is why I make art, to fulfill that
need within myself and to connect with the people of the world who also
cannot live without it."(From Bloodshot Records, 5/27/09)
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Discography
Album
The Ax In The Oak
