funky upbeat alt r&b with conscious, positive lyrics about becoming tired with reaching for rock bottom and instead looking for What's Up.

What's Up?

an ode to the love of listening to your favorite music in headphones, inspired by Neo-Soul and Alternative styles. 

Headphones

This is an epic flamenco song inspired by a mushroom trip in the desert and facing one's mortality. Almost sounds like it should be in a western where the cowboy rides off into the sunset

The Road to the Unknown

The feedback and digital telephone clips were recorded live with Ben and his friends' cellphones and captured several different sounds including two phones calling eachother through an infinite loop mic set up. 

Tim Younessi of Tropidelic really makes the song groove with the saxophone solos at the beginning and end. The take we ended up using was a practice run; Tim didn't know Cary was even recording.

Connect

Written with James Dawson around the spring of 2012. Dawson had the chords and Ben came up with the vocal and guitar melodies and used some words from a notebook he was writing in during the recovery from a car crash. 
The sporadic saxophone is Tim who originally just came in to track for Connect but knocked it out so quick we decided to try a splash of the sax on this one!

I Won't Give Up

"Midwest, Middle-Class, American Made" serves as a theme song, describing what it's like living and working as an average Joe in the middle american states. It starts with the sounds of coming home after a long day and opening a can of beer, reflecting on a big picture of a lifestyle. Inspired by Neo-Soul music & Ben's own personal experiences, the song feels like a smooth, soulful sigh as well as a proud badge of honor and illustrates the irony of contented hopelessness in today's fractured american dream. 

Midwest, Middle-Class, American Made

The?!?! aka the Punctuation is Ben Brown's funky folk & Neo-Soul project. Featuring other artists, notably Ted Younessi on Keyboards and Chris Gray as co-producer/engineer, the music came out of necessity when former bands Drunken Sunday and Vanishing Apollo came to an end but Ben wasn't done making funky music. The Punctuation has deep roots in Ohio and although Ben now resides in the desert city of Tempe, he hopes to keep moving people through music- emotionally and on the living room dancefloor.

Popular tracks by the PUNCTUATION!?