Ben Rusch


      AURALLEPSY!

                  au.ral:    of or relating to the ear

                  lep.sy:   to seize, to attack
 
 
 
 
 
 
"One of the most inventive and talented songwriters in the business today"

 
- Isaac Davis Jr. MBA, Editor in Chief of Junior's Cave Online Magazine
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

The Truth Of All Love

Ben Rusch and Simon Charlton

 

Track listing

  1. That Night When We Fell
  2. I Will Love You For A Long Time Because You're Holy
  3. And She My Vision Will Again Be Known
  4. She Comes To Me In My Hour Of Weakness
  5. Until The End Of Days
  6. The Ballads Are Soaked In Whisky
  7. How Long Must I Wait Until The Ocean
  8. Promised Land
  9. The Ghost Of You Is The Heart Of Me
  10. In Loneliness And Wine
  11. The World Is Turned To Darker Days
  12. The Truth Of All Love
 
*** Finalist, 2010 Great American Song Contest ***
(That Night When We Fell)
 
Lyrics by Simon Charlton
Music by Ben Rusch
Artwork by Cosmo Wallace
Recorded by Ben Rusch, June - December 2010
 
Musicians:
Bimbi Urquhart - Viola
Ben Rusch - Piano, Guitars, Bass, Accordeon, Mandolin, Saxophones,  Percussion
 
(c) Ben Rusch & Simon Charlton, 2010
 
"A unique album - most people will have heard nothing quite like it before."
-- New Reviews music magazine
"Rusch has a fine singing voice, with a deep soothing tone. But it's his musicianship that gives the album its value. His acoustic guitar playing is superb, often reminiscent of John Renbourn."
-- Evolver, The Progarchives



The Truth of all Love by Ben Rusch

  

 

The truth of all collaboration

... the co-conspirators reflect on the truth of all love

Ben:
 
Simon Charlton and I met at Oxford in 2001, where we shared meals, a piano and a pool table with the likes of Anamitra Deb (who wrote the Outsider Love concept album with me and who wrote and recorded the Staying Awake album with me) and Cosmo Wallace (who shot the Time music video and created the artwork for this album).  As Simon is one of the most modest people in the world, it took me one year to find out that he writes poetry and song lyrics, and one year and five minutes to find out that he happens to be a genius at it.  If you heard the songs "Obituary Mambo" or "And Now I Understand Transformation" from previous albums, you know already that I'm not exaggerating, and this new album underlines that claim unequivocally.
 
Simon and I were keen on the idea of creating an entire album together, so after developing a concept, I asked for lyrics that would work with what we had in mind.  When the lyrics came, I thought that the first few lines of the first song sounded quite poetic 
 
(it read "Promised Land - She Comes To Me In My Hour Of Weakness - I Will Love You For A Long Time Because You're Holy - We Fell Away - How Long Must I Wait Until The Ocean - And She My Vision Will Again Be Known" ... )
 
but I was surprised that they didn't actually rhyme.  And I couldn't for the life of me make head or tail of what that song was actually about.  Three pages later, I realised that I'd been reading an INDEX to a 40-page body of work.  That tells you two things: (1) I'm a bit slow on the uptake; (2) there were more deep, emotionally profound song lyrics in that one text file than even the greatest lyricists have written in their entire life. 

Musically, the aim was to afford those incredible lyrics as much breathing space as possible.  In some songs, that philosophy yielded intricate arrangements - e.g. in "I Will Love You For A Long Time..." or "She Comes To Me In My Hour Of Weakness") - to reflect the emotional depth of the poetry; other songs are unadorned and patient - e.g. "How Long Must I Wait..." or "That Night When We Fell" - letting the song be carried on the strong shoulders of the lyrics .  The overall sound of the album is organic and natural, with a high dynamic range and, if I may say so, interesting ways of creating a modern Rock/Folk sound with a range of untypical instruments in the mix.
 
Simon:
 
‘The Truth of All Love’ is an album where Folk and Jazz find expression alongside Rock and Americana in an alchemy of sounds created by Ben that pour down like silver, drawing the listener into the world of the lyrics, a world where strangers are seen by black rain gathering the bloodstained shards of their broken hearts, wandering within the shadows of a perpetual sorrow where crows are bleak sentinels and the ghost of a chance vanishes on a howling wind...
 
Ben thankfully refuses the workaday stomp of guitar, bass, and drums as the songs are coloured with piano, accordion, mandolin, saxophone, percussion, and viola.  The range of instrumentation providing for multiple shades of sound that carry the vocal to the heart of the lyric – the core of the flame.  Here are the raw elements of a world that is intensely personal whilst at the same time being wholly universal; love as hallelujah and love as horror.  

Ben’s music seems a paradoxical embracing of a complex simplicity that allows for ease of entry into the song whilst never settling into a wearying repetition of second-hand cliché and empty gesture.  Given such a tenderly created framework I believe that the love song here rises from the mire of redundancy, challenging both musically and lyrically its tendency towards the teeth achingly saccharine, the vapid, and over-stressed.  

In a world where the disingenuous seek to hold sway ‘The Truth of All Love’ concerns itself with emotional truths, truths located in the lyrics, truths given greater resonance and range by Ben’s music and voice.  In a world where so much of music is merely dead sound echoing through a house of cards ‘The Truth of All Love’ is a deliberately defiant creation of substance.  The same defiance exhibited by the strangers gathering the bloodstained shards of their broken hearts.  Despite love’s trials, its torments and tears, they still believe and that perhaps, finally, is the truth of all love...  
 
Ben & Simon:
 
We are deeply grateful to Cosmo Wallace who (was) volunteered to create a beautiful piece of art for the album cover. 
We hope the songs find their way into your ears, minds and hearts, there to live and breathe, and to sing hauntingly beautiful songs when the mood strikes them.  Enjoy!
 
Ben & Simon
 
And to give you a little teaser of the album, my wonderful friend Matthias and I recorded some live performances. 
 
 
 
 
 




 
  
*** Nominated for BEST FOREIGN RECORD at the international 2010 Prog Awards *** Runner-Up, 2010 Nashville Tennessee Concerts Song Contest *** FInalist x2, 2010 Great American Song Contest *** Finalist x2, 2010 Show Me The Music international songwriting competition *** Finalist, 2010 Expose Yourself international songwriting contest *** Honorable Mention x2, Nashville songwriting contest SongDoor 2010 *** Honorable Mention x2, Nashville songwriting contest SongDoor 2009 *** Honorable Mention, Great Lakes Songwriting Contest 2010 *** Semi-Finalist, 2010 international songwriting competition Song of the Year *** Semi-Finalist, 2010 UK Songwriting Contest *** Artist Of The Month, Anakina Musica (Italy) ***
(c) Ben Rusch, 2009/2010/2011, as appropriate - terms of use