Biography

After a decade of touring in the punk scene, in 2009 Ben von Wildenhaus began performing solo guitar in New York City and releasing cassettes and albums. New York Music Daily called his sound "deep noir" and Spin described it as "a tight confluence of meditative anti-shredding." His style has been compared to fellow New Yorkers Jim Campilongo and Marc Ribot. In 2011, he released Great Melodies From Around, a self recorded instrumental song cycle that swarms between crooked ballads with sampled Iranian percussion and barely audible AM radio transmissions from other decades. Wildenhaus then formed the Professional Band, a group of NYC studio ringers and professionals. On their 2015 album Ben von Wildenhaus II, the band is joined by the Australian singer/songwriter Scott Matthew and the NYC vocalist/cellist Clara Kennedy. The album is a two sided mirror record, in which the themes, melodies, song lengths, and lyrics on side one exactly reflect those of side two. After relocating to Seattle, WA, Wildenhaus formed Von Wildenhaus, a five piece band fronted by the vocalist Billie Bloom. The songs they play sound like The Carpenters with Omar Korshid. The haunting sound is complimented by composer Jon Sampson's hot steamy city-at-night saxophone, Aaron Harmonson's deft bass fingers, and Andru Creature's percussive weirdings on the suitcase and heavily washed out washboard. The band's first album as Von Wildenhaus, Everything In Flower, was released June 1, 2020.