Marco Benevento Bears the Psychedelic Fruits of Quarantine Days On His Eponymous Record

While built upon scraps from the archives, 'Benevento' is so much more than a collection of odds and sods.

“The studio was a good place to be trapped. Surrounded by tape machines and gear. The album started to become this document of a crazy dude losing his mind in the woods — and maybe regaining it.” - Marco Benevento on his new self-titled album.

In 1969 with The Beatles in a precarious end-of-career situation, Paul McCartney secretly recorded his lo-fi solo debut, McCartney. It’s an organic home studio effort full of sketches and sometimes half-baked bloat but serves as McCartney’s crack at breaking away from the biggest band in the world.

When the time came for Marco Benevento to name his new album built upon exuberant sketches and early morning jams, all recorded at his home studio in Woodstock - there was only one answer - Benevento, as a nod to the first solo Beatles record. Like McCartney, Benevento plays almost every note on this set of songs. Unlike Sir Paul’s first solo attempt, Benevento’s somewhat impromptu tunes are fully cooked, serving up a platter of scorching psychedelic hooks just as the summer starts to take off.

Benevento spent the pandemic mining his archives, and while the scraps tie the record together, things more often play out like greatest hits compilation for works we haven’t heard yet. Out of the gate, “Marco & Mimo” is a playful riff on West African psychedelia, featuring jovial percussion by Mamadouba “Mimo” Camara, with Benevento’s wife and children adding vocals on the simple but catchy hook. “At the End or the Beginning” could be placed on an early 00s indie compilation, and no one would assume the song is contemporary with its chunky bass and synth work sounding like something from the preliminary era of LCD Soundsystem’s career.

“We Were Here” is built around a beat that sounds as if you have come across an indestructible drum machine buried in a muddy swamp. Not looking to slow down in banger distribution, “Winter Rose” is full of foggy cascading keyboards as Benevento refrains, “if every thorn came with a winter rose, then everything was worth it, yes, I suppose.” After two well-placed transitions in the Mark Mothersbaugh aping “Polysix” and sunrise exercise in “The Warm Up,” Benevento allows the record to go into a complete psilocybin trip in asking the question, “Do You Want Some Magic” - it’s the centerpiece the entire record is building towards as Benevento shapes a hallucinogenic collage of studio gear.

While Benevento’s lyrics are often minimal and usually built around a simple refrain, Al Howard, a San Diego-based poet, planted their roots. Benevento collaborated by sometimes chopping up the words as they perfectly fit into the reverberating soundscapes.

The album serves as a refreshing reset for Benevento, who notably plays keyboards in Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, one of the biggest Grateful Dead cover bands in the land. Paul McCartney waited ten years before digging into new wave on McCartney II. Still, Marco Benevento isn’t waiting as the recording for Benevento II is underway and will surely provide a fresh slice of psychedelic pie.

Benevento is available now on Royal Potato Family.

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Hear songs from Benevento and more on the Good Ass Songs 2022 playlist!