“A shivering seabed of sound, haunted by barely there vocals and stitched together with lo-fi production – McElroy has made a beautiful early year listen.” Jude Rogers, The Guardian – Folk Album of the Month, January 2022 (4 Stars)
www.theguardian.com/music/2022/jan/14/ben-mcelroy-how-i-learnt-to-disengage-from-the-pack-review
“Ben McElroy seems to be mastering his own set of lessons on How I Learnt to Disengage from the Pack. Reengaging with the old, he has created something truly unique.” Bob Fish, Folk Radio UK
www.folkradio.co.uk/2022/01/ben-mcelroy-how-i-learnt-to-disengage-from-the-pack
Press for Soon This May All Be Sea…
“In genre and form alike, McElroy is ambiguous, operating at the margins of several genres and thereby creating a sound that’s truly his own. In a world with no shortage of ambient records, McElroy’s musical worldview encompasses ambient but isn’t constrained by it. Instead, he is fluent in ambient, drone and folk, and he combines them masterfully. He is comfortable in the language of fingerpicked guitar and bowed strings, but he can also create wobbly, pulsating drones to go with them. ”
Dan at A Spot On The Hill
aspotonthehill.com/2020/04/now-listening-ben-mcelroy-soon-this-may-all-be-sea/
“Ben McElroy’s newest is a masterclass in acoustic folk tunes. His five-track record caters to the scene he’s set his roots in over the last decade, perfectly embodying all that rural-folk sets out to achieve.”
https://www.leftlion.co.uk/read/2017/may/music-reviews-may
“Bird-Stone is a truly brilliant release that takes a non-traditional approach to familiar instrumentation. Splendid from beginning to end.”
http://custommademusic.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/six-records-cmm-wants-you-to-know_20.html
“One comes away from its folk-inflected settings impressed by McElroy’s instrumental command and his vivid evocation of the British countryside.”
http://www.textura.org/archives/m/mcelroy_birdstone.htm
“Even the improvisation, which alludes to the unruly growth of plant life with its swoops and curls of sudden instinct, stays safely within the confines of major key. Finger-plucked guitars drift like lazy, contented passages of conversation. Strings flicker like firelight splashing the surrounding walls. The drones of cellos and soft electronics anchor each piece to the earth, bringing warmth and stability to the woven improvisatory nest of “Surely There Are Worse Things” or the two-chord sway of “That Was The Day”. Yet in the spoken passages on Bird-Stone, McElroy quietly betrays the very tranquility he sustains elsewhere. While all may seem well in these cocoons of self-imposed serenity, the album hints toward the imminent collapse of the planet, as marked by the depletion of organic resources and the insidious destruction of human-accelerated climate change. It’s only on the final track, whose strings start to quiver in microtonal unease, that the unsavoury truth starts to press against the windows. ”
“Earthy and organic, it is made to breathe freely in the fresh air, where the birds can be themselves.”
http://periwinklehearandnow.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/ben-mcelroy-bird-stone.html
Ben McElroy 