Ben Chatwin
Heat & Entropy

I should start somewhere else, because despite years of listening, I'm not even sure of the genre... Ambient, okay; but Ambient is kind of synonymous with "colorful," and if someone asks you what color a sunset is, you can't just get away with saying "colorful," at least, I know I wouldn't get away with it with you. So let's say it's a bit experimental electronic, a bit neoclassical, and a bit post-rock. Or maybe not, maybe some expert among you might raise an eyebrow. But I merely copied from Discogs, complain to them if you dare.

Ben Chatwin by name and moniker, but before he was known as Talvihorros in the moniker and who cares about the ID card. He did the same things but with a cooler name on the records. The only cool thing he lost; otherwise, for four years, he's been in such a state of grace that if you look at his shrink-wrapped vinyls, you hear angels and saints tiptoeing, singing verses of love to Babylon's harlots.

I won't explain it to you. Partly because it's not exactly new stuff: he's been making records for a decade, if you've never heard of him, you should be ashamed and find a hole to hide in, and partly because I wouldn't be able to anyway. According to him, he initially played the electric guitar and rearranged it with computers and those things young people do who pose as musicians but actually just press keys at random and the PC does everything. Now, I don't really know, I think he plays forty-five instruments, and then, as always, randomly presses buttons on the PC so that the PC does everything itself.
A bit like movie special effects, right: "all done on the computer, anyone could do that!". Okay, let me come out of your PC "Frère Jacques" and I might start listening to you, then make your PC do "Avatar" and I'll start asking what the hell you're still doing on Deb. Ah, you don't know with which program the PC plays Frère Jacques... Well then, maybe electronic music isn't just something the computer does on its own. As for the computer-generated special effects, let's just say I'll limit myself to laughing at the reproductive skills of your dad's testicles, and we're all happy and content in 4k.

So what to say? Nothing, he makes electronic music, among the best out there for composition quality. Techniques, I wouldn't know; the fact that he fully acknowledges that electronic music is music in every respect is kind of like knowing that a film created 90% in CGI is still a complete movie: before I speak, I inform myself, think, and then, indeed, I speak. It's a philosophy of life that I recommend to many, not that I find myself in some extremely prominent position to arrogate the right to teach someone how to live, but there's a lot of folks out there who came out of the womb with the game rules manual written only in Japanese and these people need help. All this does not mean that I have the credentials to say, "This guy is TECHNICALLY a good soundproducer, this one is not" I haven't studied, I'm not a sound-producer (I hope I spelled it correctly at least once).

I said at the beginning that I should have started somewhere else (because I'm missing the credentials) and so let's get to the heart of the matter: Heat & Entropy is Ben Chatwin aka Talvihorros's best album, a guy who, before this work here, had four LPs out of eight in a discography fighting with each other to decide who was the best, and people with their heads on their shoulders never knew which one to recommend to friends. Then last year, this came out, and finally, there's a clear title to suggest: "Heat & Entropy" indeed. And Period.

To wrap it up, and try to say something more, clarify, be less cryptic: this is the best, the worst is probably "and it was so" which I just linked to you. Listen to that, reminding yourself: "it's the worst album in the discography." Then try this "Heat & Enthropy". At that point, you could come here and tell me I could have written other and better about the work in question and show me how it’s done.

Watch out because if you succeed, the question will arise spontaneously: "Okay, you're very talented, no doubt about it. But what do you keep this talent for, for the crappy cassettes and the reissues of Syd Barrett's burps, for Christ's sake?"

And, anyway, "Thanks Nes" for the next fifteen years.

Ah, maybe I lied, maybe "Descent Into Delta" is his best work, or maybe this is the perfected version of "Descent Into Delta", I don't know. I don't know what I'm writing and for years every time I play one of his records, I don't know what I'm hearing. But few other things do I hear so well, and almost none for so long.
It’s so beautiful that you adore it even without drugs.

For instance, I don't have a turntable, but I have his discography on 33 RPM. Bought them all in those rare moments when I'm sober.