BENNETT WILSON POOLE
I SAW A STAR BEHIND YOUR EYES, DON'T LET IT DIE AWAY (BWP)
Nearly five years on from their acclaimed debut, Bennett Wilson Poole reveal the follow up. It's been a long time coming, but...
That eponymous first album was only ever intended as a one-off collaborative project _ a serendipitous series of events which began with a late evening session where the trio wrote `Hate Won't Win'.
A response to the murder of MP Jo Cox, it was something of a fresh take on Crosby Stills Nash and Young's classic protest song `Ohio'.
The release saw Bennett Wilson Poole embraced by the Americana community, playing live on the Andrew Marr show and crowned as `UK Artist of the Year' at the 2019 UK Americana Awards, in front of a watching crowd including Graham Nash himself.
The new album came together in similar fashion; Robin (Bennett) and Danny (Wilson) started writing new songs late into the night whilst on tour to promote the first record _ a tour which unfolded from a three-night residency in a London pub into a year-long odyssey culminating in a headline show in Hall One at King's Place _ and before they knew it, there were enough songs to begin recording an unplanned second album.
Where the first record drank deep from 70s US west coast folk-rock, the second has been heavily spiked with 1960s British psychedelia, even featuring a cover by legendary counterculture artist John Hurford (whose credits include 60s artwork for Oz Magazine and International Times).*