Ben Watt checks for Storm Damage as he brings his trio to The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea

From starting as a solo artist, to enjoying huge success as half of Everything But The Girl, a DJ, remixer, and best-selling author, Ben returned to his solo roots with the 2014 album Hendra. He followed this in 2016 with Fever Dream. Both albums featured guitar-led songs and saw him work closely with ex-Suede six-stringer Bernard Butler.

But for his most recent album, Storm Damage, he has assembled, in his words, ‘a future-retro trio’ of upright piano, double bass and hybrid acoustic/electronic drums.

Ben explains what prompted this change in tack: ‘I went through a difficult period for over a year in 2017. My half-brother had recently died. It was not long after the death of my half-sister. I hit a wall psychologically.

‘When I found a way out it was with the help of the piano. Guitars kept leading me into dead ends. I began to picture the sound of the album – a passionate piano trio but undercut with samples, sound FX, distressed sounds, collage, lone synths.’He’s joined in the trio by bassist Rex Horan, who was also part of the Fever Dream band, and drummer Evan Jenkins.‘Rex is one of the most sympathetic players I know, and a lovely guy too. I invited him to play with me after seeing him on a Bert Jansch tribute show. He is Australian and has known Evan – a New Zealander – since their music conservatoire days in western Australia years ago.

‘They each have phenomenal technique but understand simplicity too. They played together in the Neil Cowley Trio – a contemporary jazz trio – until recently.’

Part of Storm Damage’s distinctive feel comes through Ben’s use of ‘found sounds’.‘I wanted to use cut and paste samples as part of the sound-bed,’ he explains. ‘I didn’t want to use easy-access plug-ins and presets from modern music software. So I turned to Freesound – an online archive of free audio uploaded by enthusiasts.

‘I searched it for weeks pulling out stuff and editing it – ansaphone messages, field recordings, abandoned synth parts.’One of the album’s highlights is the track Irene, which guests Alan Sparhawk of cult US indie band Low.

The pair first met in London 15 years ago: ‘I asked to remix a Low track for the dance-floor. Alan was into it. I released it on my electronic label Buzzin’ Fly.

‘Then in 2016 he opened solo at my Minneapolis show. He played some improvised scratchy, bluesy guitar that I loved and I asked him to play something similar on my album.

‘I admire Low’s distinctive vision and endurance.’

Ben describes his songs as being ‘very much evocations of where I am and how I feel right now,’ and as such are intensely personal.But when he’s writing, he’s waiting for ‘a moment of inspiration. A line, an image. Then I will sometimes freestyle, seeing if something bubbles up from my subconscious, and gradually things take shape.

‘I often build outwards. Ideas amass. Then hopefully it starts to fully form. Not always. I abandon lots.’And while the songs on Storm Damage came from a difficult time for Ben, there is an underlying optimism.‘They confront difficult subjects – mental health, powerlessness, death, separation, change – but there’s always the search for the hope, for strength and resilience, for love.’For fans of Ben’s last two albums with Bernard, the singer-songwriter says there hasn’t been any falling out between them – quite the contrary.‘I loved working with Bernard. We made something special together but I wanted to move on from the twin-guitar thing.

‘As I began to write more at the piano, a different sound began to form in my mind. Less guitar essentially.

‘But of course there is no reason why we wouldn’t work together again.’

Ben has also written a brace of books, which have also been hugely personal, in very different ways – Patient in 1996 about his diagnosis and treatment for a rare life-threatening auto-immune disease, and 2014’s Romany and Tom about his parents. Both won him great acclaim.

Has he considered another book?‘People always ask. Bloomsbury would like me to write fiction but I am not ready. I need inspiration and at the moment I am fulfilled with the music.’

BEN WATT

The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea

Wednesday, March 11

wedgewood-rooms.co.uk