WHITE COMPANY
Collaboration is the heart and soul of most great records, whether that’s a band toiling in a cheap rehearsal room, files appearing in Dropbox folders or a singer-songwriter batting ideas back and forth with a producer. Ben Howard has always chosen his creative allies carefully – they’re people he knows and trusts, with the bulk of the weight usually resting on his shoulders. But things are different now. On his fourth album, Collections From The Whiteout, the other key voice in the room is a new one. It belongs to Aaron Dessner of The National.
On paper, this pairing reads more like a bout for the title than a tag-team outing, with the English folk-derived peculiarities of Howard’s guitar playing and phrasing up against someone who has helped to make textural innovation and widescreen melancholia a serious currency in American music. But it was in fact a low-key, complementary match-up
“We just had a good time making it,” says Howard, while encased in a Zoom window, rollie between his fingers. “No fuss. No big story behind it. Our musical heritages are quite different but we found a familiar space in among it all, like the way we approach instruments and the way we approach pedals
