JAB — Out there In The Middle Of Nowhere
John Also Bennett is an American experimental and electroacoustic composer, multi-instrumentalist and sound designer. He has released several albums, either solo or mainly in collaboration with his wife Christina Vantzou (as CV & JAB). He is also in FORMA and Seabat groups. Furthermore, he has collaborated with the likes of Jon Gibson, Pauline Anna Strom, Michael Harrison, the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME), Jefre-Cantu Ledesma, LEYA, Peter Burr, Zin Taylor etc. Bennett currently splits his time between Belgium and Greece.
Out there In The Middle Of Nowhere is Bennett's latest album and collectively a dialectic product of a road trip through South Dakota, USA, followed by a relocation to Livaniana village, and a year later onto the island of Crete. It’s an intense album, combining the sonically transcribed aesthetic of the natural habitat the tracks were recorded in, with the mentality of the voyager and explorer. The artists treats these recording as an on-the-road diary. Being conceptual, we can easily assume that the process of moving during the pandemic, had a profound effect on how the album turned out.
The main instrument employed is an Oahu lap steel guitar from the 1940s, and its acoustics have a vital role in the vibes and the tension of the album; namely its cinematic essence and its brute beauty. It’s a steel guitar, so the sound is thick, raw, penetrating and vibrant. Steel guitar has a natural punch in contrast with a classical guitar. This is an ambient/electroacoustic, guitar-based album, paired with a solid electronic counterpart, which either collides, moves along with the other sounds or is dominant like in the track “Spectral Valley”.
Throughout Out there In The Middle Of Nowhere, Bennett sounds like a more elusive version of -let’s say- Sir Richard Bishop, mainly due to the excessive use of the instrument and how the sonic structures are unfolding from it. Slow-paced and lengthy sequences, blended with field recordings of natural and untouched sounds of footsteps on dry soil and more.
Out there In The Middle Of Nowhere seems like a very personal recollection and narration of an extrovert nature. The listening experience involves the accumulation of anticipation. We are guided by the artist into an unknown sonic territory, yet to be described and shaped. Either acoustic, electronic, or the two being merged, this is a minimalist work with an expressionist outreach, consolidated by the strong feel of the sentimentality these recordings carry. To jump in yourself