Based in south east London, Ben Hayes creates music that has been described as dizzying, intelligent and profound. Lacing carefully programmed synthesisers and the warmth of live instrumental performance with deftly manipulated found sound, Ben Hayes punctuates evolving organic textures with evocatively lopsided beats, whilst bringing to the foreground the minute beauty hidden in sounds that would otherwise pass us by.
Beginning his journey on blues guitar and finding his feet in London playing jazz double bass, Ben’s musical history represents a melange of formative influences. Discovering along the way a predilection for immersing himself in the sounds of other cultures, Ben draws as heavily on the haunting oud melodies of Arabic music and the innately moving rhythms of west African music as he does on the intricately maximal hip-hop and soul of contemporaries such as Lapalux and Flying Lotus, resulting in a sound that both builds on established tradition and occupies a distinct space in the modern musical landscape.
Heavily involved in the same south east London music scene that gave rise to King Krule, Shivum Sharma and Jamie Isaac, Ben is an active collaborator with artists in the area, having worked recently with jazz/hip-hop collective SumoChief, beat maker Kiran Kai and the indefinable HYLA.
- Dem Hunger – Mosque Vibrations
- The Comet Is Coming – Star Exploding in Slow Motion
- The Gaslamp Killer & Dimlite – 7 Years of Bad Luck for Fun
- Rvdical The Kid ft. Maesu – Dopamine
- Ben Hayes – Ray
- Alice Coltrane – Ghana Nila
- Ras G – Untitled
- Slum Village ft. Marsha Ambrosius – Cloud 9
- Jordan Rakei & Kiran Kai – Maya
- Hiatus Kaiyote – Fingerprints
- Ben Hayes – Pots
- Botany – Owa
- Lapalux – The Hours
- Sons of The Morning – The Way That Winter Passed Us
- Hundred Waters – Cavity (Shigeto Remix)
- Little Dragon – Stormy Weather
- Dhafer Youssef – Soupir Eternel (Live at Festival international de Carthage, Tunisia)
