EXCLUSIVE Pre-Release Stream & Review: Josh Benash’s (of Kiss Kiss) album ‘STASIS’

We are beyond excited to have teamed up with Josh Benash to reveal an exclusive pre-release stream of the highly anticipated sophomore release: Joshua Benash – ‘Stasis’ which will be released via Motor Oat Records and available on Bandcamp, iTunes and Spotify on August 12, 2014.

‘Stasis’ is a collection of morose and psychedelic songs recorded over the course of a year solely by Josh Benash. This record is thickly layered with haunting analog synths, walls of fuzzed ambient guitar, vintage delays, homemade objects, and of course the backward and manipulated vocal stylings of Lil’ Kim.

Josh Benash was the lead singer and brainchild of the circus punk prog band Kiss Kiss on Eyeball Records (Thursday, My Chemical Romance, Murder By Death) as well as a member of the band Vuvuzela, a waltz-like quartet featuring harp, piano, and upright bass. The album was mixed and mastered by D. James Goodwin (Kaki King, The Bravery, Thursday) in Woodstock, NY.

Exclusive Pre-Release Stream:

Joshua Benash – ‘Stasis’

I don’t really know how to start this one, and I have no clue how I’m going to be able to describe this album to you. It’s absolutely all over the place and absolutely stunning at the exact same time. Josh Benash who has a long history in music whether it be composing, arranging, engineering or playing with the likes of Kiss Kiss and Vuvuzela. He’s back again with another solo release follow up to his 2012; The Dismal; The Beautiful.

Even though it’s only been a couple years since the last release you can really hear a massive improvement in ‘Stasis’  even down to the recording of it which is so crisp to listen to. This guy has talent beyond his years so I figured let’s go track by track with this new release, so without further adieu here’s Josh Benash – ‘Stasis’

Track-By-Track

1) And I’m Told –  When it comes to opening songs, I find these are one of the most important aspects of an album, its what brings you in and gets you hooked and gives you enough want to keep listening to the rest of what the artist has to offer. Now keep that bit in mind as we continue along. In the terms of “And I’m Told” it does exactly that, a very somber and dreamlike song with such an excellent voice behind the lyrics it gives you an idea of what you think you’re in for but as we move along in the album you’ll seen not everything is as it seems.

2) Soul Eyes – Much like ‘And I’m Told’ this song has the same dreamlike vibe to it. This song however comes across very cinematic to me, it paints an entire picture in your head and if any of you out there are like me sometimes when you listen to a song you start envisioning what a music video to the song could look like and where are the beat changes would be and how they’d take place on screen, “Soul Eyes” is the perfect example of this. You’re sitting there listening to a song when suddenly you close your eyes and the entire story plays out for you like you’re in the cinema watching a film.

3) You Are Being Killed And We Do Not Care – A Small little filler that starts the break up of this album. From the looks of it the album is like a 3 act play with a beginning middle and an end, and this song being the first of two intermissions. Musically it follows the same pace of what the first two songs have to offer but throw in some background screaming and a bit of maniacal laughter and it brings you straight into act 2 of ‘Stasis’

4) For Two Weeks (You’ve Been Happy) – I’m going to give you a bit of a heads up to my first listening process of this album, what I tend to do is quickly go through the songs, no listening to them fully but very brief little snippets of them maybe around 30-40 seconds and then jump to the next just so I know what i’m in for. When I got to this very song, I thought ‘Am I still listening to the same album?’ It is such a departure from what the first two bring but that’s what breaks this whole adventure into a 3 act story. No act should be like the last. As I had said before the opening songs are always important, well in the terms of this album you have a total of 2 of them. This being number 2. It starts of very upbeat with a bit of an 8 bit sound in the background with a synth and the main vocals kick it with a bit more rawness to them and when the chorus kicks in, i’m not sure who’s singing but the voice is so different from what we’ve already heard yet somehow they mesh so damn well.  Now I could just be an idiot and not realise it’s still Josh on vocals here but either way it works so well and to me it’s the stand out track on this album.

5) Will You Shine – You know those moments when you’re watching a movie (Sorry for making a lot of film references here) and the hero is getting along so well and you think he’s going to manage to save the girl and beat the bad guy and all will be good, then suddenly you’re thrown for a loop and something catastrophic happens and the hero is set back and you think the villain has won, well if this album was one of those movies, this song would be that moment. It feels very defeating, be all stories need that moment. You need your emotions to be toyed with, so when that moment comes that the hero dusts himself off and gets back up you really feel for it.

6) Every Time I Close My Eyes All I Hear Is Lil’ Kim Screaming – I honestly don’t know what to say….The title alone on this one says it all, it’s the 2nd intermission, and is over before you know it, but damn it’s one hell of a title.

7) Your Word – Well, the albums just about finished and we’ve come into the 3rd act of this story now and its the final hurrah before all is done and over with, and he couldn’t have done it more beautifully and more poignant with adding this song on the end. You couldn’t put this song anywhere else on this album and have it mean as much as it does right here. You couldn’t even jump straight into this album listen to this one and fully understand it as much as if you sit through the entire thing from beginning to end. This whole album itself needs to be experienced in one go and not so much pick and choose.

8) Holy Holy Holy; Round And Round And Round – Another instrumental song on the album, that feels very much like the end credits, something that ties the whole album together with snippets of each act thrown together as a big collaborative song until it culminates and slowly fades out.

Altogether, it wasn’t until really sitting down and listening to this album track by track that I fully understood it, maybe I don’t understand it, maybe i’m so far off and just talking a lot of nonsense this whole way. It could very well be like a David Lynch movie where it’s not meant to make sense. You could always make up what it means yourself and go from there even, but to me this is how I experienced it. Like a well oiled 3 act movie, hitting all the points that you would see in any big hollywood film and giving you the same feeling throughout the entire thing just in a shorter time span.

Josh Benash has some amazing talent to him, and it really needs to not go by unnoticed, So if you’re down for something a bit different and up for an experience you wont forget you need to pick this up because you won’t be disappointed.

-James Sparrow

What the Press is Saying

“It’s time for a revival”, is a common sentiment in modern music but Kiss Kiss’s Josh Benash doesn’t say it, he embodies it.
-Geoff Rickley (Thursday, United Nations)

Stasis opens up our eyes to the magic of innovation and imagination. Joshua Benash proves to the world that anything is possible when you’ve got the determination to make it happen.
– Jesse Clark (In Your Speakers Media)
           

Connect with Joshua Benash

Bandcamp
Website