BEN BOSTICK

Ben Bostick is becoming hard to define.

 

Following five lauded Americana albums, Bostick’s latest offering finds him light years away from the well-traveled country roads on which he made his name. Become Other owes more to Reznor and Beethoven than to Haggard or Cash. Many listeners familiar with the artist’s catalog will be shocked that this genre-bending mythical song symphony flowed from the same pen as the greasy blues rocker “Feeling Mean,” but his sure-handed treatment of the new opus is sure to entice the brave and curious among them to join him on the journey.

 

Bostick traces his radical creative departure to the rise of AI generated music, and to one specific moment. “I was listening to an AI country song my friend sent me when my wife walked into the room and said, ‘Who is this? I love her voice!’ At that moment, I knew everything was different.” 

 

Alarmed by AI’s ability to convincingly write and produce music in existing styles, Bostick determined that an artist’s role is to aim for something higher. “One thing AI can’t do is produce things of real meaning,” says Bostick. “It can only produce facsimiles of meaning.” With this idea in mind, Bostick embarked on a radical experiment in meaning, which led to the birth of Become Other. Every word, every note, every sonic gesture of the album’s opening is transformed and reworked into the material that forms the music to come. Everything is connected; everything has meaning.

 

The album’s narrative centers on the protagonist’s despairing confinement in a place called The Tangle and his eventual metamorphosis and emergence into a World Without Measure. It is structured in four symphonic movements, each of which depicts a stage in the hero’s journey. Movement I is a realm of despair, but with just enough hope to justify life. Movement II is an attempt to find temporary relief from the misery, but the hero’s superficial efforts plunge him into even darker places. Movement III finds the hero struggling against his mysterious enemy, who, as he realizes in a painful epiphany, is himself. Movement IV is the hero’s metamorphosis and emergence into a world of limitless vision, his affirmation of strength, and a prayer of thanksgiving.

 

This psychological myth is woven into a tapestry as thick as Wagnerian musikdrama and as dense as an Emily Dickinson poem. Perhaps if William Blake had set his visionary works to music, they would have sounded like Become Other. Over the course of the four dramatic movements, listeners will experience the hero’s journey from despair to glory, confinement to freedom, blindness to manifold vision. This is music of epic scope and universal truth, a primal myth of personal struggle and overcoming.

 

Bostick is cutting a new path of limitless imagination, bounded only by the desire to make art of profound meaning. Well aware that forsaking the confines of a well-defined genre will confuse some listeners, Bostick is nonetheless unwilling to be artistically restricted by marketing concerns. “I just wanted to make an album that would have blown my mind as a 14-year-old. Not a piece of content. I know this album isn’t for everyone, but I know there will be some teenager somewhere who will put on their headphones and go, ‘Wow, I didn’t know music could do this!’ That’s who this record is for.”

 

It is uncommon in the world of music to witness a creative turn so extreme; even more rare is to suddenly see revealed such an unexpected depth of artistry and astounding compositional versatility. Clearly there is more to Ben Bostick than we thought—and clearly there are exciting things to come from this artist.

 

Ben Bostick is an Atlanta-based composer and performer.