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Name:The word Tunisia can evoke many initial thoughts. For some, its the unknown or mystery: where is this place? What is it like? For some who know a little, the mystery may still remain: desert sands, a place where the old world meets the modern world. The imagination is a powerful thing and the imagery of what one thinks of a place called Tunisia all comes to life when listening to Tunisia . An unexpectedly cohesive mix of charming acoustic songs, rock riffs, big crashing 70s progressive rock orchestral flourishes, all wrapped around lyrics presented in an intimate fashion. It really could be called cinematic rock.
So who's behind the camera then? Enter 28 year old Ben Craven. Hang on, did we say 28 years old? Yes, we did. How, one asks, does a 28 year old, on a debut album, come to have such influences that obviously include 1970s progressive rock music, a la Emerson, Lake and Palmer and Pink Floyd? Just blame the parents. Ben grew up in an environment of liberalism and was immersed as a toddler in the era of big, prog rock. His earliest musical memory is of Dark Side of the Moon. A second early memory was that the roll-up tobacco enjoyed by grown-ups listening to this music smelt remarkably different from regular tobacco.
Armed with a musical memory different from most kids his age, Ben taught himself guitar and keyboards and joined a series of bands, none of which made it and none of which remotely played the kind of music that had been burned into his mainframe as a kid. Nonetheless, the songs he wrote accumulated steadily and finally, in 2004 at the ripe age of 26 he quit yet another band and decided to write and record his own music, all of which became Two False Idols .
Tunisia is the realisation of the necessarily independent approach to writing and recording this sort of thing - music to please himself, leaving it to faith that it would find its audience, dispensing entirely with the band approach. The result is an album of incredible maturity from one so young and for a debut as well. Influences range from obvious stalwarts like Pink Floyd, Brian Wilson and Sheryl Crow, to the likes of Bernard Herrmann, John Barry and George Gershwin. Not to mention some less-fashionable progressive rock hipsters. So we wont.
Two False Idols is a collection of finely-crafted songs infused with Bens sweeping production style. From the pastoral majesty of Great Divide , and the Mexicana-flavoured Captain Caper , to the wry country rocker, Enough About You , and the prog epic Golden Band , Two False Idols sounds exactly like what it is: someone revelling in the creative freedom that only comes from not caring what you think others want and delivering what you feel instead..