For the first time on vinyl!

SIDE ONE
1. The Smartest Person in the Room (5:35)
2. Won't Say It Again... (8:30)
3. A Difficult Decision For Ronny Giovanni (6:36)

SIDE TWO
4. Ridgemore Hotel (4:08)
5. Mr. Paranoid, Lizzy, and Her Family (8:32)
6. [Final Track] (9:36)

Stream the album here: fortyminusfour.bandcamp.com/album/the-smartest-person-in-the-room

Please inquire about international shipping rates. Thank you!

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PRESS RELEASE:

Benjamin Dean Wilson is a singer/songwriter from Tulsa, OK. With his mixture of sardonic humor and pop sensibilities, Wilson has drawn comparisons to Ray Davies, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman, yet his songs are firmly at home in the 21st century, finding meaning in the absurdity of the modern world.

Wilson started off as a part-time songwriter, devoting most of his energy to filmmaking in his hometown of Tulsa. While working on commercials and short films of his own, he found his cinematic experience translated well to music and began devoting more time to songwriting. The result was his 2016 debut album, Small Talk, released by the German record label Tapete, which was a minor hit, earning a four-and-a-half-star review from Rolling Stone Germany. Wilson supported the album with a tour of Germany while working on the songs that would become his follow-up album, entitled The Smartest Person in the Room, released exclusively to streaming platforms in 2018. It was well received by fans and critics alike, with Alternativa Radical calling it “One of the most interesting albums on the independent plane in years.”

But perhaps the most significant event of Wilson’s career occurred in early 2019, when he found a fan in Cincinnati-based novelist Luke Geddes, who has founded Works of Love Records expressly to give The Smartest Person in the Room vinyl release it so richly deserves.

That’s me, the author of this press release. I first came across Small Talk while trawling eBay for Jonathan Richman records and was immediately struck by the cover, a B&W high-angle shot of a mustached Wilson gazing pensively up at the camera “like a high school drama teacher inviting the viewer to take its contents quite seriously” (to quote AllMusic’s Timothy Monger). On the Richman comparison and that image alone, I purchased the album. And I can say without hyperbole that it changed my life.

It’s a cliché that music will never mean as much to you as an adult as it did when you were a teenager, that world-shaking discoveries are fewer and further between as you get older. After all, you only get to hear The Velvet Underground & Nico or Pet Sounds for the first time once. But like a lot of clichés, there’s truth to it—backed up by science; research has shown that the rapid neurological development undergone between the ages of 12 and 22 imprints the tunes we listen to during this time with especial importance. I mention this because not since I was an adolescent have I felt so astonished at the sounds emitting from my stereo speakers as those endless moments after I first dropped the needle on Small Talk.

And The Smartest Person in the Room may be even better.

Wilson’s songs eschew traditional structures and shatter genre distinctions. They are as tuneful as all get-out, yes, but plenty of artists can write a catchy melody. The brilliance of Wilson’s music is in its unique construction. Recording to Tascam 1/2-inch tape in his home studio, Wilson combines wildly disparate elements -- say, a countrified fiddle, a disco beat, doo wop harmonizing, and a “talking blues” lead -- seamlessly to form rich tapestries of musical narrative. For all his many talents, it is in the storytelling department where Wilson’s genius shines brightest.

Exempli gratia: “Won’t Say It Again…” is the monologue of a spurned lover driven batty by suburban ennui, a John Cheever novel in eight and a half minutes, culminating in a delirious salsa-fied bridge that finds our narrator spinning a yarn (or might he be telling the truth?) about a crazed killer on the loose. “A Difficult Decision for Ronny Giovanni,” meanwhile, tells the tale of the titular lothario/drug dealer whose unique moral code is about to be compromised by a favorite client’s teenaged daughter. Finally, “Vitamin Supplements,” a personal favorite, will find a sympathetic ear in anyone who has reconnected with an old friend who’d rather pin you with a multi-level marketing pitch than reminiscence about the old days.

To compare Benjamin Dean Wilson to other artists would belie his rarefied singularity. Nevertheless, I think Wilson should be a favorite of fans of artists as diverse as David Berman, Father John Misty, Weyes Blood, Adam Green, Foxygen, and many, many others. Truth be told, I cannot imagine any listener of today resisting Wilson’s unique charms, and I expect big things from him -- and big audiences for him -- in the near future.

As funny as a stand-up comic, as insightful and incisive as a Great American Novel, and with a compositional ingenuity to rival any contemporary or past master, Works of Love Records is honored to introduce you to Benjamin Dean Wilson, and his album The Smartest Person in the Room.

Luke Geddes
Founder, Works of Love