Longtime FLOOD readers may remember way back in 2017 when Benjamin Booker was the subject of our Award-Winning (well, not technically) “Breaking” series. This was shortly before the release of his sophomore effort, Witness, and three years after his self-titled debut. BB was a bonafide star, an alt-rock visionary drenched in the soul-blues of Bo Diddley and the psych-pop of Tame Impala.
After Witness, Booker went away. He didn’t do one of those faux-mystery where-are-they-now-style disappearances where they’re actually just waiting a few years to reemerge and make even more money because the reunion/rediscovery economy prioritizes “authentic” moments above all else. He actually left, mostly because he couldn’t make the music he heard in his head. He lived on Skid Row in LA, relocated to Melbourne, and began formulating the bones of his third album, Lower, thanks to an unexpected collaborator.
He began trading emails with Backwoodz-affiliated producer (and general indie-rap wunderkind) Kenny Segal, and was inspired to write a new project that incorporated Segal’s hip-hop roots into his sound. The result is an album that finds Booker paying homage to some of his favorite movies and actors, exploring his sexuality (in his words: “gay stuff”), and trying to write songs so universal that they’re sure to rake in the dough. Hell yeah.
With the new LP out today via Fire Next Time Records (through Thirty Tigers), check out his track-by-track breakdown of Lower below.
1. “Black Opps”
This song is about my harrowing experience playing the 21st iteration of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Can you even call yourself a man if you haven’t helped this country control global politics through hidden acts of violence while eating pizza rolls? When my virtual country calls me to serve, I’m there!
2. “LWA in the Trailer Park”
Once, in the trailer park I used to live in, this two-year-old got attacked by bees and died just like that Macaulay Culkin movie. I think his parents got in trouble for neglect. I got in trouble for becoming obsessed with My Girl.
3. “Pompeii Statues”
Are the people sealed in volcanic ash in Italy nature’s first attempt at sculpture? If so, I have a small critique. Like with music, you can’t just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again. Variety is the spice of life. Sure, you’ve got a bunch of different positions, but you could do so much more.
4. “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar”
Gay stuff. Yep. It’s about gay stuff.
5. “Speaking with the Dead”
This song is about one of my favorite actors, Haley Joel Osment. I used to play shows in downtown Tampa at this dive bar called The Hub. At some point, Osment filmed a movie called Sex Ed there, so they changed it around and painted things and added stuff on the walls to make it look like a movie bar. The owner just left it. So, if you go there, it’s like drinking in a 64 percent Rotten Tomatoes movie.
6. “Rebecca Latimer Felton Takes a BBC”
Think about how much money you could’ve made back in the day selling black wooden dildos to sexually oppressed slave-owners. Did they have dildos back then? DM me if you find the answer.
7. “New World”
This Terrence Malick movie [2005’s The New World] is criminally underrated. I think it’s because it came out the same time as Colin Farrell’s sex tape and people couldn’t stop thinking about him slurping up Pocahontas. I applaud every sex tape. Do you.
8. “Same Kind of Lonely”
My publisher once sent me this document on how to write pop songs, and hitting on a universal subject and writing as vague a song as possible were big takeaways for me. Here we’ve got verses like “Dream like you want me to / Dream like it’s me and you / Alright” and a song about loneliness. Really, the money should roll right in.
9. “Show and Tell”
See the previous section.
10. “Heavy on My Mind”
Refer to “Same Kind of Lonely” description.
11. “Hope for the Night”
Refer to “Same Kind of Lonely” description.
