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BEN HACKETT TO RELEASE DEBUT DOUBLE ALBUM SONGS & TOUR
April 25 @ 8:00 am - April 26 @ 5:00 pm EDT
Ben Hackett will release his debut album Songs for Sleeping Dogs on May 16, 2025 via Strolling Bones Records. The 12-track, double album was self-produced during quiet hours in his home studio and co-mixed by Hackett and Jason Kingsland (Deerhunter, Belle and Sebastian, Youth Lagoon). Exhibiting profound musical depth, Hackett plays each of the dozens of different woodwinds, acoustic instruments, electronics, and other components of the songs. Every sound dissolves into the next for an album that breathes and reacts, all within an intimate and unguarded atmosphere. Whittled down from over 30 songs to the twelve that appear on the final double album, Hackett’s homespun sounds were fed through a half-inch tape machine and translated with subtlety into the perfect headphone experience.
American Songwriter premiered the album highlight “Reflection Pond Ripple.” Hackett says it “may be the song that I’m most proud of on the record. Not for any virtuosic playing or any fancy mix tricks, but just because I feel that it is the song that maintained a true sense of space and patience that I wanted to impart to the listener in the most natural and unobtrusive way. This is one of those songs that I didn’t know what it would sound like when I sat down to record it. I think I finished it in about 2 hours – it all felt like the song was already there and I was just brushing the dust off of the melody and turning it over in my hand like an old shell or a smooth river rock.”
Paste Magazine previously shared both “Nylon Bell Pot” as well as “Loose Changes 2” while Magnet Magazine shared the album standout Memory Ornament as well.
Originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee, Ben Hackett has lived in Athens, GA since 2012 after his band New Madrid recorded their first album at one of the town’s most celebrated studios, Chase Park Transduction. Since that time, he has established himself as part of Athens’ vibrant musical community and now works at Chase Park as a staff engineer and session player.
He didn’t set out to make an album of meditative flowstate sonics when he began recording the various pieces that eventually revealed themselves as a whole. In fact, he didn’t set out to make an album at all. Hackett says, “I started recording Songs for Sleeping Dogs before I knew what it was. I had just moved out of an apartment and into a small house with my partner at the time. We had been there a few months and decided to get a puppy, who we named Tombo. It was liberating to be able to record whenever I wanted to, but I gravitated to recording at night when everyone (including the dog) was asleep. Woodwinds, keyboards, acoustic guitars, and the softest percussion came together to score the dreams of pets and people. An ode to deep breaths through wet noses.”
While recording, Hackett kept the songs organized by giving them titles that corresponded with what was happening as they were being made. Rather than looking at sterile dates as markers of time, tracks had real-time names like “Tombo goes on a walk and we order Indian food” or “Between Sleep.” Choosing pictorial song titles is part of the evocation that happens throughout the album. The music indeed feels like the scenes set by the titles, be it a reflective walk after dark or a relaxed bathwater splash of a sleepy synth sequence. The sounds are thoughtful and strange, saturated with quiet contentment that never overstates its message or raises its voice for fear of waking the dozing dog.
Songs for Sleeping Dogs is a study of subconscious beauty.
Ben Hackett’s Songs for Sleeping Dogs will be available across streaming platforms, compact disc, and double black vinyl cut at 45rpm for optimum fidelity. Songs for Sleeping Dogs is available for pre-order NOW via STROLLING BONES RECORDS.
Songs for Sleeping Dogs Track Listing:
1. Between Sleep
2. Nylon Bell Pot
3. Tombo Goes on a Walk and We Order Indian Food
4. Babe, Pig of My City
5. 18pp
6. Loose Changes 2
7. Tombo Takes a Bath
8. Music for Wood and Tape
9. Memory Ornament
10. Reflection Pond Ripple
11. Songs for Sleeping Dogs #1
12. Tombo Hunts for Bamboo Shoots
Ben Hackett Live:
April 25 – Athens, GA – Bolo Bolo
April 26 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
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