watch SCAVENGER in six parts
listen to the music HERE
SCAVENGER
art from the abyss
text - music - visual
"scavengers are essential for ecological functioning because they speed up the decomposition process" avibirds.com
SCAVENGER was originally conceived as a musical project where the majority of the songs would be built from discarded sound files.
In November 2023 Richard X Bennett was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and SCAVENGER became something else entirely: a multi-media exploration of pain, garbage and chemotherapy, created during his six month long treatment.
The music is soaring, grooving and emotional. The twenty-five minute six part video is lo-fi and raw, drawing on images of trash, botany, mutating cells, prison destruction and rXb’s own idiosyncratic dancing. An inveterate story teller, Bennett even draws on life experiences as backgammon gambler and trash collector in weaving his metaphorical web.
SCAVENGER in six parts is ambient in nature.
"It's like stained glass windows in motion, to be seen running in a loop on walls, floors or roofs. Text is used but never becomes foreground. It’s all in the mosaic."
The six parts are:
1) twelve days of chemo
art installation slowly torn down
2) all i have left is my words
memory and loss
3) love and garbage
destroy the jail
4) how to kill a plant
amaryllis arrives and dies
5) backgammon
gambler makes ultimate bet
6) my elegy
afterlife fantasy
About the SCAVENGER album Bennett says “I didn’t stop being funky just because I was sick. The easiest thing on the piano is to sound depressing so that was avoided. The vibes are also featured prominently. My vibes were rescued from an abandoned storage container so they fit the theme perfectly. People sent me tracks from around the world and I layered them on top of mine.” Along with the studio tracks is an eighteen minute raga development taken from a concert at Columbia University in February.
The SCAVENGER world also features love and forgetting, an imaginative reimagining/remix album with the British electronic musician Aaron Dolton (aka HUW). “L&F” has poetry by Paula Jeanine Bennett as well as rXb as well as recitations about metaphysics, mortality, pilgrimage and cell phones.
rXb says: “it's beautiful music. HUW takes obscure parts of my new songs and creates a boombap universe. Lay back and listen to it and your problems will disappear.”
SCAVENGER in six parts uses music from both releases.
Asked about theme, rXb says “obviously cancer overwhelms your life, but making art during this time was cathartic. Hopefully these pieces will impact and help others as well. I’d be delighted if it gave people some deep pleasure.”
richard x bennett - videos, songs,
piano, vibes, harmonica & melodica
release date 11/15/24 Ropeadope Records