Download “Ravine Road” from Ben Smith’s new EP
West Chester’s Ben Smith has released a new EP called Ravine Road, following up the singer-songwriter’s 2011 debut Crooked Earth and a handful of singles. This record was an experiment in doing it yourself – Smith played all instruments and recorded it himself, and that individualistic approach was applied to the lyrics as well. There’s a song about poison arrows, Broadway Danny Rose and The Fonz – incongruous as a whole but relevant in and of themselves to Smith’s encounters during this specific time in his life. From Smith:
[The songs are] a bit looser this time around—which is a nice way of saying I recorded all the parts by myself this time, in my home studio, without obsessing over every little detail. There was still a lot of obsession but I was more interested in capturing little live moments rather than fussed over ones. And so, armed with that approach, a somewhat limited understanding of proper recording technique, and some recently acquired vintage instruments—some from the auction of the estate of Josiah Hibberd, my late seventh-grade Social Studies teacher—come these five songs.
Stream and download the title track below and check out the full EP here.