Ben Seretan – “New Air”

Ben Seretan on Bandcamp.

Rating: 3.5 out of 4.

Ben Seretan felt like a great open secret in 2020 until I realized this past week that every single other music critic also loved “Power Zone.” You can be talented in music and in picking the right publicist apparently. Or maybe the music was just good? Worst case, Allura turns Seretan into Faye Webster and makes boring music while making actual money from playing festivals. “New Air” and its opening jam do not strike me as “worse-case music.” The Seretan tunes I love the most are also so lowkey that his flavor of boredom is closer to sublime or meditative, like listening to the fuss in your head while attempting to pray. I want to give “New Air” three stars but the opening jam—which again sounds like a Seretan prayer—is so fun that I can’t deny it.

-Brady Gerber

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