Sunday Music: LWA IN THE TRAILER PARK (Benjamin Booker)

Kenny Segal doesn’t really make roots-rock music. He (usually) makes dense, art-rap soundscapes that defy most attempts at the commercial mainstream. Not that I ever thought Benjamin Booker was headed for the top of the charts with his guitar-driven proto-rock for a modern world ethos, but this producer/artist combo on paper alone, of Segal and Booker, had me intrigued enough to press play on this record.

Sometimes, when most of the acoustic instruments are removed, the synths, and robots, and sequencers can make the contrast of a voice sound even more human.

It’s forlorn. It’s a wasteland. It’s Otis Redding in a 2020 COVID-locked-down trailer park with a laptop and a modest substance addiction.

Rap and rock mashups are old (re: historical, often boringly un-explorative) at this point. But this album has some fresh takes. It just requires you listen to all of the sounds and the choices for where they’re placed, both in time, at what dynamic, and at which frequency ranges.

When you’re surprised by one moment, as kept happening to me on my first listen, I’ll encourage you to play it back.

Give it a chance and see if you can sense why it’s there, or what it would mean if it weren’t. Segal and Booker are playing off of each other in a special way on songs like LWA below and it warrants a close listen. This isn’t rock over a beat, it’s an interweaving of two histories to create an only in 2025 vibe.

They’re curating a fully-detailed soundscape to tell a story around. Listen like you’d watch a movie. The sound-design is as important as the set-design as the story, characters, and twists.

Here’s one example that jumps out to me the most. Press play on Benjamin Booker, from his latest album, LOWER, on a song I can’t get out of my head this week, “LWA IN THE TRAILER PARK”:

(Definitely put your headphones on for this)