Ben Zaidi Shares “Younger With Time.”; Debut Album By Tony Berg Out 6/3
January 11, 2022 BY Nettwerk
Today, Ben Zaidi shares the latest single, “Younger With Time.,” from his upcoming debut album, Acre of Salt (out June 3, 2022. Pre-order HERE). The hushed melancholic track, apt for release at the start of a new year, tackles the concept of the passage of time. Ben explains, “So much of your 20’s can be defined by the loss of this thing called ‘youth.’ We often end up disowning it, mourning it, and trying to recapture it, all at once. But what if youth wasn’t a time ? What if it was just a name for a particular kind of freedom ? And what if, after all of the heartbreak, the loss, the disillusionment, the apathy––what if you could still find it, with a little help ?”
WATCH + SHARE “YOUNGER WITH TIME.”
Acre of Salt was produced by Tony Berg (Phoebe Bridgers, Peter Gabriel, Beck) and recorded at Los Angeles’ Sound City Studios along with backing band members Ethan Gruska, Sebastian Steinberg (Fiona Apple,) saxophonist Sam Gendel and Kane Ritchotte (Portugal. The Man.)
Born and raised in Seattle, Zaidi is a Harvard-educated poet whose debut album explores a variety of themes: death, racial identity, quarter-life changes and the loss of innocence that comes with a rapidly decaying planet. Growing up with a lot of Northwest music influences, ultimately lyric-heavy albums such as Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ and The Freewheelin Bob Dylan, as well as Joni Mitchell’s Blue, were in heavy rotation while writing his new album.
Much of the record was influenced by a long drive down I-95 from Brooklyn to Florida to visit a friend who had been diagnosed with Stage IV non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and going through chemo. “And that obviously was the first smack in the face of, ‘Oh, we’re not invincible anymore’ It’s not like, ‘Oh our whole life is ahead of us stretching out in front of us,’ but instead there is a certain frailty that this is all precariously balanced on. And I think the album’s grappling with that.”
