“Benjamin Went Fishing” is the new single from Frogbelly and Symphony, culled from the upcoming album Canis Major, produced by the band’s Thomas Lebioda. The group maintains strong ties to the traditional (and non-traditional) folk community: Vocalist Liz Hanley also performs with the Green Fields of America, Mick Moloney’s long-running exploration of Irish music, storytelling and folklore in America. Guitarist Benjamin Trott spent time in a latter-day version of the Albion Band, a group central to the British folk revival but with a wholly new take on folk forms.
The group‘s appreciation for tradition and need to break from it is on display via “Benjamin Went Fishing”. The song intersects with classic pop, progressive rock, and, of course, folk music but all in a way that each is rendered different, foreign to the listener as they embrace this new hybrid before them.
The band says, “This song is full of forgiveness and renewal, drawn from a brief period when our guitarist Ben left the band and came back again. The multi-part singing and acoustic character of the arrangement exemplifies our band’s desire to make unique and uplifting music. The melody Liz sings has lyrics based around the phonetics of English, Scots-Gaelic, French, and some made-up words, a technique derived from the mouth-music/lilting tradition in Celtic folk music.
“The video is the work of Hamburg videographer /musician Juha Hansen, our band’s creative partner in all things visual. It was filmed aside Redmires Reservoir outside Sheffield, and inside the Victoria Baths bathhouse in Manchester England. The video also features our friend and occasional band member, Sheffield woodworker and drummer Ally Fraser. No lobsters were harmed in the making of this video.”