This man is a quiet genius. But the new four track EP shouts loud about his prodigious talents. Blue-John Benjamin has inherited the crooked throne of Jake Thackray and twisted it into the 21st century.

The magnificently named Red Telephone Box Graveyard EP is awash with wintry Christmassy melancholy. Acoustic guitar and mulled wine vocals are augmented by surreal states of brass and found noises. Powerful word imagery. You can almost taste the snow flakes blowing across this EP. I am picturing Christmas Eve in old Whitby where Bluejohn lives. “An insubstantial man” is being assailed by frost. Blue-John is passing on his way to tear tree houses down and move mountains by night. “His head is in a spin.” Like being trapped inside one of those Victorian snow scenes and squinting out through the blizzard and warped glass to the landscape beyond.

The final song “Wake Up England,” is “a clarion call for something momentous about to begin.” There is a wonderful spirit about it. And a whistle along tune with a twist and turn. A dreamer’s international anthem.

Blue-John Benjamin is the master wordsmith. In fact a true English craftsman in word and tune.

This should be number one in every household, something to keep us aglow as we are trapped in by the drifting snow.

Quite simply wonderful.

Blue-John Benjamin and His Amateur Humans

http://bluejohnbenjamin.com/page3.htm

The Red Telephone Boxes Graveyard EP

On Derelict Roller Disco Records

Available through Amazon, i-tunes and spotify

By Rob Nichols on December 1, 2010