One of my favorite musicians rarely tours, records out of backyard shed and makes videos using family members. I’m not saying that he should have mega-tours and glitzy, packaged recordings—he wouldn’t; he’s anti-capitalist in the best sense—just that it’s surprising that he hasn’t been “discovered” by more people. Still, the Jacksonville, FL-based Ben Cooper, whose solo material is recorded under Radical Face, and duo material with Alex Kane called Electric President, has a devoted following who appreciate his dream-like and literary music.
Electric President has released five albums, most recently The Violent Blue in February of 2010. Their music is electronic, but is more nuanced—somehow more personal—than most electronic music being produced today. It certainly is more layered with voices, beats and live instrumentation, rather than synthetic reproduction of sounds. Electric President is perhaps more raucous than Radical Face—which really isn’t saying much in terms of NOISE—but still reminds me of the kind of music you’d play driving from somewhere to somewhere else on a desolate stretch of road; it's a happy journey, but still a little bit lonely. In 2006, Electric President had their song Insomna featured on the California teen show, The OC.
Cooper and Kane make an unusual combination, but it’s a good one. Kane likes pop music, especially that from the seventies and eighties, while Cooper prefers classical music, movie soundtracks and composers. Cooper’s soundtrack inspiration is apparent with his narrative lyrics and concept-based albums.
Ghost, Cooper’s 2007 release under the Radical Face name, is such an album, based on the idea that houses hold the stories of everyone who ever lived in them.
Cooper takes the same care with his solo work as in the work with his musical partner. With subtle additions of bells and drum beats, as well as descriptive snippets of poetic narratives, listeners can tell that this is Cooper’s own mind on display. Cooper’s voice is different from the one you would expect from a bigger guy with a full a beard—it’s light and airy and he makes use of a lot of humming, hand-claps and subtle dream beats—sounds that require physicality, grounding the type of electronic music that Cooper produces in a reality that the innovations of auto-tune and synthesizer cannot replicate.
Radical Face tours a bit more than Electric President—Alex Kane is still in school, so is only available to tour in the summertime. Cooper played a free show in Washington D.C. this past March, with the only entrance fee a donation.
Keeping with this grassroots type of music production, under the name Patients, Cooper released music that he would give his listeners the music if they gave him something non-monetary in exchange. Fans sent him objects connected to their personal lives, including old sneakers.
On the other hand, because of Cooper’s vocal anti-capitalist message (he even makes reference to hating MySpace on his website) Radical Face’s modest, but still present, commercial success is a bit disconcerting. The song Welcome Home has been included in a Nikon commercial in Europe and recently in a 2011 Chevrolet Volt advertisement. It’s strange to see such individual music with small-scale production on network television and because of his message, makes you trust Cooper a little bit less.
Still, it’s silly to say an artist has “sold-out” if he wants to make a little money—as long as Cooper retains artistic control, commercials like these will at least give him a little bit of cash to keep recording. He better quiet down on being such an anti-capitalist guy, though--commercials like these make him seem a bit hypocritical and I still want to love him a whole lot.
Cooper just released a six track EP called Touch the Sky. This is a preview for a trilogy he is producing called Family Tree to be released in 2011 with the two opening albums Roots, Branches and Leaves.
Sources and further reading and listening:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radical_Face
http://inyourspeakers.com/content/interview-ben-cooper
Printer-friendly version