After years of chopping wood to keep his house warm, Ben Weaver has left the ax in the oak. It’s a statement of confidence as well as an artistic metaphor for Weaver, whose sixth studio album, The Ax in the Oak, is his most realized and mature work to date—the culmination of personal and musical growth for the 29 year old, and his time to enjoy the fire he’s stoked.

For the recording of The Ax in the Oak, Weaver traveled from the Twin Cities where he is based, to Chicago’s Engine Studios where he teamed up again with Brian Deck (Iron and Wine, Modest Mouse), the producer with whom he worked with on his 2007 release Paper Sky. Drawn together by mutual friends and a love for the shimmering, electronic pop of Austrian-based musician Christian Fennesz, Weaver and Deck made a conscious effort to take a more experimental approach to create the mise en scene for Weaver’s songs; Weaver came into the studio with only half of the basic melodies and chord structures written for each song, and the duo took turns going in and out of the live room working on each others’ previous idea.

Apropos to Deck’s work with Califone, the result is an organic album with electronic elements, thoughtfully complimenting Weaver’s earth-honest and indelicate delivery, while also not completely neglecting his folk-roots. It also yielded Weaver’s first instrumental composition (“Said in the Stones”). Joining Weaver and Deck in the studio were cellist Julia Kent (Antony and The Johnsons), vocalist Erica Froman (Anathallo), and some of Ben’s friends: Will Duncan (drums), Blake Sloan (bass), and Steve Reidell (bass, Hood Internet).

Ax was recorded in Chicago, but the writing took place in Berlin, where Weaver bunked in a 4th floor courtyard apartment for several weeks during July 2007. Weaver’s approach to songwriting is not your typical verse-chorus-verse arrangements, but rather little song-stories about birds, phone booths, empty parking lots, strangers in the checkout line, plastic bags stuck in trees and other things that may go unnoticed in life’s overstuffed Wunderkammer. Weaver’s mood is double-edged; darkness and melancholy always live in close proximity to a romantically hopeful and redeeming view of the human condition. His songwriting took critic’s notice on his self-released 2004 album, Stories Under Nails, with accolades collected both in the US and abroad in The New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning, Harp, Mojo, and Q Magazine.

As a friend of the late Southern writer Larry Brown—who called Weaver “the most exciting young songwriter I’ve come across” —Weaver penned two songs in tribute to him on Ax: “Hey Ray” and “Hawks and Crows.” Weaver also contributed a song to the Bloodshot Records compilation: Just OneMore: A Musical Tribute to Larry Brown, released last year.

Weaver returned to Berlin after the recording of the album—to the same apartment—to draw all the artwork for The Ax in the Oak. But it’s not the first time Weaver’s explored the 2-dimensional side to his art: His limited-edition, hand-printed chapbook of poems and drawings, “Hand Me Downs Can Be Haunted,” sold out the first two printings and is now in its third. Weaver has also contributed a story to an upcoming Anthology being gathered by Steve Horowitz for Mellville House—each selection of fiction is written by a songwriter. Expected to be in bookstores in March 2009, Weaver will be featured along with the likes of Renee Sparks of The Handsome Family, Greg Brown and Jolie Holland.


Press + 2007
BUY BEN WEAVER'S LATEST RELEASE "Paper Sky"

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For Immediate Release                                                                       
February 12, 2007

BEN WEAVER PREPS PAPER SKY
HAUNTING ALBUM SET FOR RELEASE MAY 1

"Country-rooted Americana full of weary determination and aphoristic clarity."
Jon Pareles, New York Times

“Not the kind of thing to play on a sunny Sunday morning, but it may be the best thing for a spooky Saturday night. Weaver pulls it off... out on the edge.”
Bill Flanagan, CBS Sunday Morning

Ben Weaver is 26 and Paper Sky is his fifth album, set for release on May 1st 2007. The restless, prolific songwriter has been praised as “riveting” (No Depression) and “a startling talent” (Time Out London) that “tells amazing stories” (Utne Reader) in his evocative songs populated by birds, phone booths, lovers, and plastic bags stuck in trees.

Paper Sky will be released via Weaver’s own Fugawee Bird Records, which the songwriter runs out of a Casket Company warehouse in Minneapolis. On Paper Sky, Weaver sets off to explore “urban and industrial themes that I hadn’t touched before.” With the aid of producer Brian Deck (Modest Mouse, Califone, etc.), Weaver employs crinkly synthesizer textures and other mutilated sounds in the service of his haunting, hushed melodies.

Surrounding the release, Weaver will be touring extensively throughout Europe and North America.


PRESS QUOTES

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"...country-rooted Americana full of weary determination and aphoristic clarity, somewhere between the Band and Tom Waits."
Jon Pareles, New York Times

“…musical postcards that recall a rural Tom Waits, or Greg Brown in his dark, bluesy moments. He’s like that spooky old guy who lives in a trailer but tells amazing stories.”
Kieth Goetzman, Utne Reader

"Big Ben Weaver is 24, has a beard and a dog and favours the woods of Northern Minnesota. For once, the work clothes tell a story. He's a startling new talent..."
Ross Fortune, Time Out London

"...strange, skin-prickling tales picked up from the Moebius strip of a lost highway he's been compelled to travel on.... like a hillbilly Leonard Cohen."
Sylvie Simmons, MOJO

“Ben Weaver is the most exciting young songwriter I’ve come across, an American original whose voice and guitar are matched only by the power of his words. His songs are an incredible, haunting gift of music.”
Author Larry Brown (1951-2004)

"...his raw, art-damaged vocal screeds are riveting, invigorating, illuminating."
Jim Musser, No Depression

“…the quintessential backwoods antihero, maintaining his private, stripped-down songwriting style, while leaving the cabin door ajar for anybody with a curious ear.”
Matt Parris, The Weekly Dig

"Weaver's brand of youthful rebellion comes filtered through the mad-staring eyes of a corn-chewing old-timer."
Henry Day, Q

"Weaver's voice - which makes Lee Marvin sound like Aled Jones - lends biblical portent to the most mundane detail. A one-man Brothers Grimm with no happy endings. Enjoy."
****UNCUT

“He has a gift for startling images and melodies that stick in your mind after a single listen.”
J. Poet, Phoenix New Times

“Although he seems burdened with a world-weariness unbefitting a 24-year-old, it’s exactly that incongruity of youth and melancholic meditation that makes his new album, “Stories Under Nails, so engrossing."
Travis Smith, Boston Metro