Audio Antihero

Hi hi,

Yesterday we released a remastered and expanded reissue of Benjamin Shaw‘s debut album. It comes with eleven (11) bonus tracks. It’s free / PWYW on Bandcamp.

Pre-Save to Spotify

“Originally released in late 2011, this was only the second full-length album that Audio Antihero Records had released (after Nosferatu D2’s debut in 2009). We sank a lot of love, time and energy into it and back then it felt like both the beginning and the end of something. But I’m not sure it was much of either. Ben has made a lot of very different records since and for now we’re both still here. But it was and still is a strange and special album.

I’ve been trying to shut down Audio Antihero for a long time but among myriad other things, Ben’s music always feels like that perfect “one last job” which drags me back in for yet another run of dead media. It always seems so perfect to team up with my big pal to share something sad and sarcastic just before I turn out the lights. We’ve done this multiple times now and it’s never quite stuck. It’s hard to resist the opportunities that free/pwyw digital releases offer to give folks one last chance to catch something different from an artist who always deserved a much better record label. Maybe it’ll stick this time. Either way, Ben will keep creating beautiful music for himself and for you.” – Jamie (Audio Antihero Records)

Nice CD copies of the original release available here – bnjmnshw.bandcamp.com/album/theres-always-hope-theres-always-cabernet

Previous Press for Benjamin Shaw:

“A piece of work that could stand the test of time…The solitude is palpable.” – Gold Flake Paint

“It’s a reminder that some of the most powerful emotions can bloom from the simplest of raw moments, and Shaw is an expert at crafting just those instances.” – Drowned in Sound

“You wouldn’t want everyone (or anyone else) to sound like Benjamin Shaw but I’m delighted someone does.” – The Line Of Best Fit

“A wonderful beast.” – DIY Mag

“Benjamin Shaw is an outcast, a loner, a maverick and a freak. All of these are compliments.” – CLASH Music

“Pop’s outsider…” – The 405

“Puts you right beside its maker as he helplessly glares at himself in the mirror. But the music that soundtracks those dark moments is as beautiful as it is morose.” – The Alternative

“Though to focus on terrible feelings as a beginning and end is to miss the point.…To flatten this into the trope of anti-social introvert misses the true admixture of forces at work—the guilt, the shame, the dreams impossible to achieve. The promises that could never be kept, the nostalgia for things that never existed.” – Various Small Flames

“A chameleon of genres, the Melbourne-based Shaw has drifted through washes of shoegaze and fields of electronica, melding dissonant drones and folk affectations into an incredibly singular and raw brand of confessional music, its ennui palpable.” – Dimestore Saints

“Imagine yourself sitting in an empty room. All the lights are off…Your nails dig into the back of your head and you tug at your hair, wondering how hard you could pull before you finally rip it out of your skull. That’s what it feels like to listen to Benjamin Shaw.” – Atwood Magazine 

Hi friends,

Delighted to finally release Benjamin Shaw‘s Live at donaufestival album. It’s free / pwyw and it documents his long trip from Melbourne to Krems, Austria to play his first show in five years. It sounds unlike any show he played before it and includes numerous songs he would never have had the opportunity to play live before that. It’s a beautiful release and already one of my favourites. I hope you enjoy it.

Listen: Bandcamp / Spotify / Apple Music

Previous Press for Benjamin Shaw:

“A piece of work that could stand the test of time…The solitude is palpable.” – Gold Flake Paint

“It’s a reminder that some of the most powerful emotions can bloom from the simplest of raw moments, and Shaw is an expert at crafting just those instances.” – Drowned in Sound

“You wouldn’t want everyone (or anyone else) to sound like Benjamin Shaw but I’m delighted someone does.” – The Line Of Best Fit

“A wonderful beast.” – DIY Mag

“Benjamin Shaw is an outcast, a loner, a maverick and a freak. All of these are compliments.” – CLASH Music

“Pop’s outsider…” – The 405

“Puts you right beside its maker as he helplessly glares at himself in the mirror. But the music that soundtracks those dark moments is as beautiful as it is morose.” – The Alternative

“Though to focus on terrible feelings as a beginning and end is to miss the point.…To flatten this into the trope of anti-social introvert misses the true admixture of forces at work—the guilt, the shame, the dreams impossible to achieve. The promises that could never be kept, the nostalgia for things that never existed.” – Various Small Flames

“A chameleon of genres, the Melbourne-based Shaw has drifted through washes of shoegaze and fields of electronica, melding dissonant drones and folk affectations into an incredibly singular and raw brand of confessional music, its ennui palpable.” – Dimestore Saints

“Imagine yourself sitting in an empty room. All the lights are off…Your nails dig into the back of your head and you tug at your hair, wondering how hard you could pull before you finally rip it out of your skull. That’s what it feels like to listen to Benjamin Shaw.” – Atwood Magazine