Track: Benjamin Verdoes - Night Walker

You might have come across Seattle beatmaker Benjamin Verdoes through his eccentric and unpredictable songwriting in Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band. Since those days, he’s honed his skills as a producer and beatmaker, as witnessed by his previous solo effort, The Evil Eye.

Out today via Brick Lane Records is a new EP, The One & The Other, which Verdoes has written as a narrative, set in six chronological scenes. From it, he has released a new track, Night Walker which Verdoes says is “the second piece of the narrative found on The One & The Other. It [Night Walk] follows the characters underground into the bizarre world of the NYC subway system late at night. After the stimulation of the city the dull and muted journey through dark tunnels mirrors the loneliness and isolation that happens on the return to daily life. The joy of the heights of the buildings is replaced by the underground pathways of depressive thought as The One navigates home alongside a sleeping and foreboding Other.”

Night Walk follows Verdoes narrative of the late at night with these eerie synth sounds, and covering everything I echo with a sense that it’s close it too far away to touch. As it unfurls, so vocal harmonies are added, and these isolated beats give a sense of the lonely, unnoticed existence some people live. It’s beautifully evocative.