Promising young musician Brooke Bentham quickly exploded after her singles ‘Heavy And Ephemeral’ and ‘I Need Your Body’ started to get heavy rotation on both BBC Radio 1 and 6music. Having established a widespread following, the South Shields songwriter now drops her debut album ‘Everyday Nothing’.
Despite her early success, Bentham began to experience writer’s block which was triggered by underlining problems hampering her creative process; “I felt very empty and numb. There wasn’t a sadness to it, there was a nothingness to it which I guess is what people say depression is.”
Bentham was able to address her problems and channel it into the music with aid of Bill Ryder-Jones, who produced the record and was able to help her create a masterful first album which feels like a fresh take on grunge influences.
“I’ve worked with some amazing songwriters in my career. I think Brooke at 23 is well on her way to being up there with Alex (Turner), Saint Savoir, Mick (Head) and James (Skelly). Her lyric writing will be overlooked because of her voice but it is her words that will set her apart from others.” – Bill Ryder-Jones
Brooke Bentham’s “Everyday Nothing” chronicles the inertia of life as an artist post-graduation. Guitars veer from spectral one minute to menacing the next. Her lyrics are both personal and elliptical, flashing relatable truths. Confronted with the mundanities of life and caught between two jobs in London, Brooke finds intense lyricism in the struggle for purpose and direction.
“There is so much frustration in being young and unsure of what you want, especially when your path is creative,” says Brooke. “You can only hope that it leads you to something fulfilling, so you cling on to the everyday details – burning candles in your bedroom at three AM aged sixteen, or having a bath in the evening at twenty three, or watching your breath when you step outside in winter. I was reflecting a lot when I wrote these songs, romanticising those moments.”
Written entirely by Brooke, with a few contributions from producer Bill Ryder-Jones (who’s own album YawnyYawn was showered with 4 and 5 star reviews last year), “Everyday Nothing” documents a fast-rising 23-year-old looking to make sense of her existence.
Widely acclaimed for a debut single released during her first year at Goldsmiths University and signed (to AllPoints) in her second, Brooke began Everyday Nothing as soon as her studies were over.
“I was supposed to start, but mostly I lay in bed,” she says of those first few months after graduation. “I read a lot of books and I wrote a lot of notes, but I didn’t come up with a single song. I didn’t have a job. Nothing was going on. I had fuck all to write about.”
In need of more income, she hauled herself out into the world of work and started again. With routine re-established by getting a job in a shoe shop, her notebooks were soon filled with everyday images: dead flowers on a window sill, the feel of keys in her hand as she approached home, snippets of conversations, scenes from the rom-coms, novels and poetry she’d been reading. These shards captured the essence of her internal life at the time.
“Sometimes I wish I could keep music as a hobby,” she says and refuses to give up either of her two jobs despite all the time she has to take off to tour. “If I didn’t have a real job I wouldn’t write,” says Brooke. “I need structure and deadlines or I get nothing done.”
Everyday Nothing soundtracks the reality for many young people today. One in which hopes and dreams play out in a haze of confusion and frustration. Brooke captures this existential vulnerability, the baffling day to day-ness of a young life in the most relatable, poetic and compelling of works.
“A lot of life is boring and predictable, but I hope this album is a way of saying that with some charm.”
Following on from the release of two well received EPs, London-based songwriter Brooke Bentham returned this week with her latest single, “All My Friends Are Drunk”. Brooke is just off the back of a tour with Bill Ryder-Jones, who produced this single, and will be following it up next month with huge shows supporting Sam Fender.
Much of the appeal of Brooke’s songwriting lies in her impressive lyricism, a songwriter detailing the post-university fog of your early 20s, a time when insecurity looms large and the world is simultaneously full of opportunity and utterly terrifying. All My Friends Are Drunk is a musing on growing apart, an attempt to capture “that wishful longing for what was”,set to a backing of driving rhythm guitars and the steady clatter of cymbals. Sliding in neatly alongside the likes of Soccer Mommy or Hazel English, Brooke Bentham creates a world of hazy, tumbling emotions, this feels like the start of something huge.
Brooke Bentham super singer songwriter from South Shields Newcastle in the North East of England, lovely engaging vocals from the tender opening notes to the tear jerking crescendo its a stunning first listen plus check out her cover of the Bombay Bicycle Club song “Dust on the Ground”.
The Fat Angel Sings 