Ben Swire

The Preservation label presents From Here To There, the debut album from San Francisco’s Ben Swire. While From Here To There can sit snugly in the canon of electronica, it’s played out with expansive vision and immediate warmth. Woven together with a deft sense of minimalism and melody using double bass, interlocking guitars and crisp percussion, the use of live instrumentation against densely layered field recordings finds great balance between elasticity and deep ambient underpinnings. The accomplished nature of From Here To There is the result of a diverse background working in music composition and sound engineering. Ben is a multi-instrumentalist who lived a spell in London, during which he came to collaborate on a single on the Ninja Tune label offshoot NTone with Riz Maslen, aka Neotropic. He also studied electronic music with noted electro-acoustic artist Charles Bestor, collaborated with experimentalists M Bentley and Joel Stern and has composed for film and new media. After writing, performing and improvising with various groups, Ben pushed his focus further with production techniques to sow the seeds for From Here To There, his process clearly keeping an eye firmly on beautifully realised composition. Ben is also a photographer, his work having been shown in several US galleries. His photos of desolate landscapes grace the artwork of the album to become a visual touchstone for the music’s epic sweep and sense of affected space. (label info)