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CMU Approved
Approved: Benin City
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 30 May 2018
Benin City return with their new album, ‘Last Night’, on 15 Jun. Over eleven tracks, multi-instrumentalist Tom Leaper and vocalists Joshua Idehen and Shanaz Dorsett explore, celebrate and memorialise London’s nightlife. In particular they focus on how that nightlife, and the city as a whole, is changing, through the gradual disappearance of numerous venues.
“London nightlife has been our way out, our release, our daily escape”, says Idehen. “We’ve been clubbers, ravers, barmen, part / full-time drinkers. We’ve served cocktails and downed shots. We’ve found ourselves on dance-floors and lost our dinners on night busses. We’ve laughed, we’ve cried, we’ve engaged in dumb drunken squabbles and we’ve found ourselves in strangers’ houses. We’ve danced to songs we didn’t know the name of”.
He continues: “We made landmarks out of hidden corners of London: Passing Clouds, Ghetto, Trash Palace, Plastic People, Vibe Bar, Cable, Crucifix Lane. Those places, and the stories they held are gone for good as London becomes pricier and ever more grey. On this album are some of those stories: this is an ode to London’s nightlife”.
The band play an album launch show at King’s Place in London on 8 Jun. Now, here’s the video for latest single, ‘Bus’.
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