Benny Sings – Parachute
Benny Sings has announced his new album, 22 Durnham Dew, out September 25 on Sings Records/Stones Throw, and shared its first single, “Parachute”, in both English and Dutch versions, the first time a Benny Sings album has carried a fully Dutch-language song. It follows two years of writing and two singles we’ve already covered: Real Person (W08), a spontaneous jazz-leaning collaboration with Elijah Fox about the duality of love, and Castle (W46), which used the literal rebuilding of his house as a metaphor for getting through a long stretch of exhaustion before finally landing somewhere worth celebrating. There was also Simple Life (W34) featuring Leven Kali.
“Parachute” is described as the emotional center of the new record. Benny wrote it about his mother’s depression during his youth and the lasting effect it had on him, framing the feeling as jumping from a plane with no parachute attached. That’s a heavy starting point for what he’s wrapped it in: a light, danceable disco song, the kind of contrast that could easily feel mismatched but apparently doesn’t, by his account the song carries real weight underneath a deceptively breezy surface.
The album itself is described as his most personal work yet, shaped by family life and the renovation of his new home, with his wife and daughter both appearing on the record. Coming from an artist who’s spent more than two decades building a catalogue alongside collaborators like Tom Misch, Rex Orange County, Mac DeMarco, and Kenny Beats, that kind of direct, unguarded framing stands out.
I’m curious how that tension between subject matter and sound plays out across the rest of the record once it’s actually here.
