Premiere: Hobart musician Ben Salter unveils new VR video for the luminescent track ‘bliss’ and we review his mesmerising new album ‘twenty-one words for happiness’.

We are very pleased to unveil the premiere of a new video by Hobart/nippaluna artist Ben Salter on the eve of the release of the last of a trilogy of recordings he has done as artist in residence at the Museum Of Old and New Art (MONA) – the largest privately funded collection of art in the southern hemisphere.

We reviewed Salter’s first contribution to the trilogy, ‘twenty-one words for loss’, late last year, calling it a tremendous and rewarding journey: an exploration of the darkness and misery that will always beset the human condition, expressed with stark beauty and an ethereal luminescence.

The new video for the track ‘bliss’ is in itself a masterpiece – it is a Virtual Reality (VR) enabled piece by visual artist and Director Michelle Brown (with production and technical assistance from Peter Lin) that can be viewed on Oculus VR.

‘bliss’ is an ethereal dreamy track with Salter’s falsetto vocals gliding over a simple strumming guitar, perfectly suited to the mesmerising immersive video with its strange glitches and luminescent landscapes. There is a barb to the message – this bliss it’s hit or miss – try happiness, it’s harder than it seems – which is emphasised by the melancholic tone while the dizzying array of colours and textures in the visual accompaniment creates an immediate contrast. The video is simply spectacular:

From the opening Beatlesque track ‘contentment’, each track in ‘twenty-one words for happiness’ is a ninety second vignette written and recorded, like its predecessors in the trilogy, in the vast halls of MONA over three weekends. The album isn’t simply themed on happiness but rather explores, at times, the very antithesis.

Salter’s voice throughout is exquisite – filled with yearning and an indelible softness on the linked theme of happiness. Songs like ‘pleasure’ have an upbeat indie pop thrum – get in touch with the ones you love and a pop vibe. Salter’s voice in ‘jollity’ reminds me of something by Bowie – there is a percussive click and wild guitar solo but with layered vocals and upbeat melodies.

And despite the thread of happiness running through the themes of the twenty-one tracks, Salter maintains an expressive melancholy throughout – creating a tension between the title and the expression. The lyrics also create a clever tension between meaning and inference that undermine the tone – you can slice me open any time (‘rapturous’).

‘felicity’ is an exception – a jaunty humorous ditty that skips and dances in fifty-seven seconds.

In essence, the brevity of the songs are like an enormously exploratory tasting menu that never repeats and constantly surprises and entertains – leaving a desire for more but resulting in complete satisfaction at the end.

The album is best experienced as an immersive whole – a series of quickly moving observations that are individually quirky and restless but which combine into an experience that is mesmerising and hypnotic. Salter as ever captures senses and emotions, inspired no doubt by the atmospheric hallowed halls of MONA.

Salter says of the trilogy and ‘happiness’ album:

The first one (loss) was a sort of writing exercise, both with the 90 second rule and the titles all being synonyms for the one noun. I was really happy with the results so I did the same thing the following weekend for “desire” except with an extra rule: no guitars. For ‘happiness‘ I thought I’d keep it obvious and attempt to write all happy songs. A lot of my output is somewhat bleak and a bit of a drag so it seemed like a cool idea. I don’t know if I was entirely successful but there is a sort of self-help, positive vibe to a lot of the lyrics and there’s a fist pumping, big chorus vibe to the arrangements. But it’s still kind of sad.

‘twenty-one words for happiness’ is out today through Rough Skies Records and available through the link below.