Ben Chatwin is an experimental electronic composer who works primarily with modular synths and other hardware to create densely layered soundscapes with sweeping emotional resonances. His music combines brutalist rhythms with drifting strings and synths, to create music that is at once abstract and cinematic.
His music explores the tension between electronic music and acoustic composition, and he plays a number of instruments he has taught himself along the way. His powerful aesthetic is underpinned with a commitment to bold concepts and arresting ideas, from the ambitious Signals trilogy (Village Green), where he looked to relinquish control of his music by giving it to other producers and surrendering it to technology, to The Sleeper Awakes (Village Green), an album inspired by the writing of H.G. Wells. His final album as Talvihorros was Eaten Alive (Fluid Audio) an album about drug addiction and homelessness in East London.
Ben works from his home studio, The Vennel, a den he's been filling with esoteric and broken instruments for the last 20 years. His treasure trove of oddities includes a 19th century dulcitone, a metallophone, harmoniums, heavily modded guitars, toy Casios and 8-bit samplers. He collects instruments that have an unpredictable quality, which can bring an element of the unknown into his compositional process, and often lead to the sonic unlocking of what otherwise would be discarded equipment.
His compositions are now rooted in experimental electronic practices, from the broken equipment of artists like Pole and Oval to the immersive sounds of artists like Tim Hecker, Labradford and Grouper, as well as working with modular and often on tape, Ben's music is one with a distinctive sound and patina, whether it soothes with snowdrifts of drone or makes sound physical with colossal shards of vibrational feedback.
"The process of making music is a healing one for me," he says. " I enjoy it immensely, and it is spiritual in a way. When it all flows, I can lose hours. I don't get that feeling from anything else."
