Ben Westbeech
There’s More To Life Than This
Ben Westbeech, born in trip hop mecca Bristol, has been a jack of all trades the last few years, getting noticed as a singer, songwriter, DJ and producer. His soulful 2007 debut Welcome To The Best Years Of Your Life, released on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings introduced him as a Jamiroquai/The Streets hybrid. But this time around legendary house label Strictly Rhythm releases There’s More To Life Than This - Ben’s long-overdue second album. It’s a soulful and jazzy house music-influenced late summer gem. The album was cut in hip places like Munich, Berlin, Amsterdam, New York, London and Stockholm by influencing heavyweights like Motor City Drum Ensemble, Georg Levin, Rasmus Faber and Henrik Schwarz.
The album opens up with the pretty sleek pop number “The Book”, a soft start with an 80’s blue eyed soul groove, like George Michael produced by Hall & Oates. It’s followed by the uplifting and funky single “Something For The Weekend”, a filtered up-tempo jazzy house club anthem. He gives the song an epic treatment under his own alias Breach. “Falling”, another single, with a dark and atmospheric mood takes over with wobbly keys, funky basslines and cowbell. The single release features a fantastic Deetron remix. Motor City Drum Ensemble is behind the controllers on “Justice”, with a deep and pumping 4/4 groove and melancholic Rhodes. Another dark roller is “Stronger”, with a slow, deep and hypnotic beat Produced by Midland. The Henrik Schwarz produced “Inflections” is the strongest track on the album; a string-laden Gypsy calypso hybrid with the Schwarz trademark of a deep and building 4/4 bass, clang and bongos – a masterpiece in the vein of Moloko’s “The Time Is Now”. “Let Your Feelings Go”, produced by George Levin is a funky little piece of up-tempo soul with a genius bassline and sharp drums, and it shamelessly borrows the chorus from “Let’s Get Blown” by Snoop and Pharell. The two last tracks are produced by jazzy Swede Rasmus Faber; “Butterflies” is a funky gem in the tasty style of jazzanova/4hero, while “Summer’s Loss” end the album with a tender and building orchestral film score vibe. The lyrics couldn’t describe right now any better: ”Summer goes and winter comes again – Rearranging, some things remain the same.”
There’s More To Life Than This contains no weak tracks, only a few slightly bland moments. Ben doesn’t do any groundbreaking reinvention of himself, but there’s no need for such transformation, this is uplifting, soothing and melancholic – for the club and the bedroom, in a coherent way. He has proved himself as a great producer under his Breach moniker, so maybe he doesn’t need all that help next time around.
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