Music / alt folk
Preview: Benjamin Francis Leftwich, St. George’s
It will be ten years this October since Benjamin Francis Leftwich lilted onto the UK music scene with the lullaby-soft EP A Million Miles Out, and a decade later his sound is not a million miles from the one that announced his arrival.
That’s not to say the sincere Yorkshireman has stayed in a rut all that time – although never drifting too far away from the wistful folk template which has served him and countless others so well, he has nevertheless explored beyond the genre’s beating heart into the uncertainty beyond.
A prolific 2019 saw the release of his much-anticipated third album Gratitude, an introspective record swelling with lush production which entered the realms of ‘folktronica’ with – it must be said – varying degrees of success. This move, from the Ben Howard ballpark to the James Blake side of the tracks, was followed eight months later by the Elephant EP which swung right back to the full-hearted guitar-led tracks which captivated audiences to the point that 2014 hit Shine was Spotify’s most-repeated track of that year (140,530,976 streams at time of writing).
Leftwich has spent his entire career signed to Dirty Hit Records and more than holds his own amongst its star-studded roster, which includes the 1975, Wolf Alice and others. Owner of a genuinely beautiful voice and a wonderful way with a song, that’s hardly surprising.
Benjamin Francis Leftwich appears at St George’s on March 20. For tickets, visit: https://www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk/event/benjamin-francis-leftwich/
Main photo by Claire Leach
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