Ben Sloan - muted colors

muted colors

ben sloan

On March 24, 2023, percussionist and producer Ben Sloan, who has performed and recorded with The National, Moses Sumney, Beth Orton, Mouse on Mars, Rozi Plain, Serengeti, and WHY?, releases his debut album, muted colors, a shapeshifting exploration of genre-fluid sound. And he brings a few of these friends on the journey. Featuring Sumney, Serengeti, Liz and Josiah Wolf of WHY?, and Felicia Douglass of Dirty Projectors, Sloan’s debut was culled from his digital scrapbook—old hard-drives, folders, field recordings, studio sessions, and countless voice memos—resulting in a time capsule-type album that feels frenetic, yet contemplative, betraying a heavy core beneath a flitting surface.

“The album is something of an abstracted diary,” says Sloan. “Each track is a vignette, a little colorful, sensational world to briefly indulge.”

Bryan Devendorf, drummer for and founding member of The National, has been listening to early mixes of muted colors. “Ben has a special, percolating style and sound that is completely his own,” he said. “muted colors teems with beautifully glitchy tunes and stunning moments of cosmically magical drumming. And great singing and many other killer things, too.”

For nearly a decade, over and over, Sloan toyed with, stowed away, unearthed, refined, then reburied the sounds on muted colors—a percussive construction site, a fleeting musical thought, a bird outside his bedroom window—until now, when they’re finally being heard by the world. But muted colors is not only intended to be heard, it’s also intended to be seen.

“The creation of this record was followed almost immediately by a deep dive into animation and artwork,” says Sloan. “Almost subconsciously, I created a visual companion and language for the music. At this point, the visuals feel extremely linked to the music. And I plan to fold them into the live performance as well.”

Over ten tracks, Sloan weaves in themes of isolation and memory, family and loss, sensory overload and our digital personas, sculpting a painstaking, self-produced sonic collage.

“muted colors is an external sharing of an internal shuffle, the thoughts felt but not expressed,” says Ben Sloan. “The album explores depression, confusion, and self-doubt, all against the backdrop of our deteriorating world, but not with the intention of despair. Rather, muted colors is an attempt to dive deeper into the pain. To understand and care for it. And to move forward.”