Ben Lukas Boysen is a Berlin-based composer, producer, and sound designer. Classically trained on guitar and piano, the musician is the son of opera singers Deirdre and Claus Boysen. For many years he produced electronic music under the moniker HECQ for labels like Hymen Records and Ad Noiseam, releasing ten albums of everything from ambient to breakcore between 2003-15. On June 10th, Boysen will release his Spells LP via Erased Tapes, with the label also getting set to reissue his 2013 album Gravity. Today we listen to “Golden Times 1“, the first listen in on his upcoming new record. Joined by drummer Achim Färber, cellist Anton Peisakhov, and harpist Lara Somogyi, together the musicians explore the nuanced interplay between programmed piano and live instrumental improvisation. The results are intended to question and blur our listening experience, with Spells being a self-described “quest to find out how much or how little composition is required to constitute a song.” “Golden Times 1” finds the piano playing beautiful melody lines, and if it’s “pre-programmed” it seems to have the expressive freshness of the human hand. Eventually joined by a florid and swelling ambience, the piece gains a propulsive momentum with the addition of percussion–only to eventually swallow itself in a cloudy mist of white noise!
