One afternoon in the middle of North Carolina a storm rolled in. The wind picked up and the rain started falling and the front porch wind chimes, ordinarily gentle, almost inaudible, began cutting through the weather. Each tone called something forth, overlapping swirls of resonance. "sandhills music" is a humble effort to synthesize what was captured—the sounds, the tones, the associations, the cars driving by, the stories, the interconnected pangs, the unfurling scroll.

https://www.tinyshowcase.com/books/sandhills-music-by-ben-seretan

sandhills music

an example of what a personal tone zone might be:
https://benseretan.bandcamp.com/merch/personal-tone-zones

crown shyness

A commissioned cover of the Bee Gees classic, recorded for a walk down the aisle

Song arrangement starts about five minutes in

You can commission your own zone at:
https://benseretan.bandcamp.com/merch/personal-tone-zones

How Deep Is Your Love (zoned)

From the self-titled LP out October 28th. Pre-order digital and vinyl here:
http://benseretan.bandcamp.com/album/ben-seretan

And cassette tape version here:
http://hopeforthetapedeck.limitedrun.com/products/532415-dude-021-ben-seretan-ben-seretan-pre-order

Maybe I was wrong
We had some good times
You took the thorns from my paws
We had some good times

Hey, it's all right
Light leaks from under the door
Maybe you were right
We had some hard times
You took the thorns from my crown
We had some hard times

Hey, it's all right
Light leaks from under the door

You will be stronger tomorrow
You will be wiser tonight
You will find new love without warning
You will find new joy with every breath

From the album "Ben Seretan," out on digital, cassette, and double LP October 28th.

Guitar by Alex Lewis
Cello by Bryan West
Bass by Nico Hedley
Choir - Maddie Caldwell, Nico Hedley, Alex Lewis, Tom Tierney, Bryan West
All else by Ben Seretan

Recorded and mixed at Spaceman Sound
Mastered by Gus Elg, Sky Onion

Ben Seretan - Light Leaks

Live recording of a new song, "The Singing Sun," recorded live at ShapeShifter Lab in Gowanus in November of 2014. The concert also featured Mobius Trio, who rule:
http://mobiustrio.com

Lyrics:
All the things you're scared of are what make me smile
My only one
The singing sun
Real love makes you crazy
My only one
The singing son

"The Singing Sun" - live at ShapeShifter Lab

Excerpt from a four-channel sound piece by Ben Seretan and Thor Harris, included as the soundtrack to a sculpture installation by Gracelee Lawrence, on view starting June 8th at the Paggi House in Austin, Texas

Austin field recordings, vibraphone, and Rhodes by Thor
Lap steel, singing, and mixing by Ben Seretan

For more info on the Paggi House:
https://www.thelorenhotels.com/austin/gatherings/paggi-house

To RSVP to the opening:
https://urdx19tp7da.typeform.com/June8

Gracelee Lawrence:
https://www.graceleelawrence.com

Thor Harris:
http://www.thorharris.org

Ben Seretan:
http://www.benseretan.com

"Where Does Anything End in this Infinite World?"

music for the exhibition "TenderHead" by Bianca MacPherson, on view at Zoller Gallery, College of Arts & Architecture, Penn State, March 17 - 28, 2025

tasting notes: weather rolling in, white noise machines, falling asleep in front a television, the transportation of dreams, the sound of ice crashing against itself in waves on a frozen lake

recorded at home by Ben Seretan, spring 2025

for more of Bianca's work:
https://www.bianca-macpherson.com

an oscillation in the presence of the now

The first track from "Bowl of Plums," the new album from Ben Seretan. Out June 2016. Brought to you by Whatever's Clever and Love Boat Records & Buttons.

http://benseretan.bandcamp.com
http://www.benseretan.com

LYRICS:
How'd my boots get so heavy?
I prayed to anything out loud
But you came and took my blues away
You took my blues away

Alex Lewis - Guitar
Ethan Meyer - Drums, percussion, vocals
Nico Hedley - Bass
Maia Friedman - vocals
Ben Seretan - guitar + vocals

Recorded by Kyle Pulley at the Headroom and Alex Mead-Fox at Spaceman Sound. Mixed by Victor Nash at Destination: Universe! Mastered by Gus Elg.

Track photo by Alex Tatusian

You Took My Blues Away

Part 48 of 48.

My Life's Work is 24 hours of guitar improvisations recorded over three nights, August 2017.

Subscribe here or to the newsletter for a new half-hour a week:
tinyletter.com/benseretan

Or, try the hotline: (561) 926-9741

I recently had the opportunity to rifle through a bunch of shit I left at my parents lake house in Missouri the summer I graduated college. That was 8 years and a season ago now and most of this stuff I hadn’t thought about or even remembered ever possessing. It’s now wallowing and slowly eroding away inside purple plastic tubs kept in a storage unit in Las Vegas. I took a quick inventory. There was my yellow melodica, purchased at a flea market in Berlin when I was 17, along with a felt replica of my yellow melodica, don’t remember who made it. A beautiful tambourine, a set of bongos, an old transistor radio. There were old LPs from various people’s collections - I recognized my brother’s taste in 90s hardcore and power metal and my dad’s love of fusion. Most of them are warped and probably won’t play right, but I took a few under my arm anyway. There were three unlabeled VHS tapes, no idea what they are. Books I read in college, graded papers, notebooks full of notes from classes. I can barely read my own handwriting. The hat I wore at my college graduation plus some of the decorations from a party I don’t remember. A kaleidoscope. A “don’t tread on me” flag. A signed picture of the Beach Boys I received in the mail at age 7 after I sent a letter to their fan club. Brian almost wears the big tweed suit and beard comfortably, with dignity, but he’s in the back, obscured behind Al Jardine. Mike Love has “USA” written down the sleeve of his leather jacket. There was another picture of the Beach Boys, too, this one larger and unsigned and in sepia tones from their early, striped shirt days. The contrast and the gulf of time between the two photos is astonishing. There was the label from an antique can of squid given to me by a docent at a maritime museum in California in 2008, neatly preserved in plastic. High school yearbooks full of inside jokes indecipherable to adult me. There was a really official-looking commendation from the state of California recognizing my efforts in organizing a charity dodgeball tournament at my high school on behalf of the victims of a tsunami. A copy of my high school girlfriend’s child modeling headshot. 3 paintings by Steve Keene I won in a raffle in 2009, one of them is a quickly rendered version of the album cover for Neil Young’s “Everybody Knows this is Nowhere.”
All of this took me back. It took me aback, too, but the thing that really got me was the amount of correspondence I held onto, how many letters and postcards I accumulated. I found a note from my friend on the night of my senior thesis recital - there’s a facsimile of an Agnes Martin piece on one side and him saying he believes in me on the other. I don’t remember receiving the note or having read it or why he apologizes at the end, but the physical proof of it existing, of it having been in a box next to a lake for the last 8 years, gets stuck in my throat. There’s a letter from a friend of mine written on a particularly large leaf. We don’t speak anymore, not out of anger or out of anything other than growing apart. Her handwriting is craggy and hard to make out and the more I handled the leaf the more it crunched, pulverizing in my hand. I remember getting really stoned with her once years ago and throwing a frisbee around and giggling nonstop, a pure and simple moment of boneheadedness. And now we don’t speak, but there’s this leaf. There were two photos of someone I once considered my best friend, tucked away discretely behind other powerful totems of my history. Some days I feel that I ruined that friendship, other days I feel it’s his fault...

A project by Ben Seretan. Hotline coding by Johann Diedrick. Recorded overnight at Spaceman Sound. Released in collaboration with Infinite Best.

My Life's Work - 48 - Far Away From Where I Am, Further Still From Where I Was

Struck Bell / Pocketknife

I was a horse
I run up that hill
I was a horse
I run up that hill
He's my one true love
On the other side

Take me away
And build me a home
Take me away
And build me a home
My lover's gone
Down beyond the sun

I will see you
I will see you
See you
See you
There
I will see you
I will see you
See you
See you
There
On that other shore
My one true love

God is a man
Holy in word
God is a man
Holy in word
He broke my back
When he took you over there

I will see you
I will see you
See you
See you
There
I will see you
I will see you
See you
See you
There
On that other shore
My one true love
On that other shore
My one true love
On that other shore
My one true love
On that other shore
My one true love

My One True Love

From YOUTH PASTORAL, available here:
https://benseretan.bandcamp.com/album/youth-pastoral

Am I Doing Right By You

Tuna Song

**ECSTATIC / ELECTRIC**
"Whatever's clever"
Super down to play weddings

benjaminseretan

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