Canadian Urban-Folk-Pop-Rock-Good-Stuff. "a warm and intimate recording buoyed by his graceful finger-picking skills and cosy vocals" (Edmonton Journal, April 2005)

10 MP3 Songs
FOLK: Folk Pop, ROCK: Acoustic



Details:
A rising star in western Canada's urban folk music scene, Ben Spencer is a profound songwriter and a dynamic performer. His new self-produced CD release Lynch the Mob is quickly garnering critical and audience acclaim, described as "a warm and intimate recording, buoyed by his graceful finger-picking skills and cozy vocals..." (Edmonton Journal, April 2005). The Edmonton-born writer shows impressive range, crafting comedy, irony and sincerity into his work. He has made various folk festival appearances, including Regina City, the Edmonton Folk Festival and the North and South Country Fairs. The past year has seen Mr. Spencer impress as an opener for the likes of Blackie and the Rodeo Kings and Leon Russel. He plans to tour extensively in support of his superb new album.

The production story of Lynch the Mob is an inspiration to independents everywhere. Left with a small inheritance insufficient to cover the cost of a full studio recording, Ben sank everything into a custom assembled digital home studio consisting of a lap top, a 2 channel sound card, headphone and speaker monitors, a utility mic and a nice diaphragm mic. He spent a large portion of the summer of 2004 locked inside grappling with the intricacies of his hard and software, demo-ing the songs for the disc and refining their composition. The final tracking of the record began in November of that year, aided by pre-amplifier rentals and some inspiring guest performances from his friends. The mixing and mastering of the disc was accomplished impressively by the resident sound mixer at Edmonton's premier live venue, the Sidetrack Café. Having gone it alone thus far, Ben saw no reason to farm out the final step of production, purchasing a photo-real printer with his last pennies in order the facilitate the assembly of the disc at home (though you'd never know it to see it). Not bad for a local release that talent buyers and radio DJs have called "the release of the year" and "a masterpiece".