Stream: Ben Jaffe, ‘Susan the Cat’

Kevin Bronson on March 13th, 2018

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Ben Jaffe’s solo album “Oh, Wild Ocean of Love” arrives in May, and the natural thing might be to draw some kind of parallel between his album and the solo effort released last year by his bandmate in Honeyhoney, Suzanne Santo. Except there aren’t many, if there are any at all.

Santo’s album was a fiercely personal collection of rootsy Southern rock, but not far from the freewheeling Americana of three Honeyhoney albums. Three songs in, Jaffe’s “Wild Oceans” seems a really well executed flight of fancy, playfully experimental and conceptually playful. The latest song tease is the rapturously cinematic “Susan the Cat,” a wonderful song even if you don’t like cats.

As part of the album rollout, Jaffe is also releasing a videos as part of his “Rearranger” series — which offer alternate versions of the songs. If you don’t like cats, don’t bother with “Susan,” but the string quartet version of “Blooming” is lovely.

||| Stream: “Susan the Cat” and “Blooming”