Excerpt: “… Neo-lounge composer Rich Bennett is sure to find favor with the modern yacht rock crowd, but truth be told, his stylistic lineage traces back through folks like Esquivel, Martin Denny and Arthur Lyman. His 2010 release,On Holiday, found plenty of favor with both critics and the martini set, and coming at this point in time, his new video for the gauzy Misty Valley almost feels like a lackadaisical afterthought. Not that I’m complaining. It’s all a passing sad daydream, with found footage casting a soft focus on the breezy buttermilk sky pop. Highly recommended with cocktails and nostalgia.”

My Old Kentucky Blog

Excerpt: “We featured Rich Bennett back in August 2010 on the strength of his superb album ‘On Holiday’. So the following from Hidden Shoal a week a go was a nice surprise. Today, Hidden Shoal Recordings found an old VHS cassette stuffed down the back of a sofa in their label office. Delighted to discover a playable copy of the movie Buddy Cop, the label is now proud to share its soundtrack, for free, with the world. The back of the tape reads: Dan Lyman (Rich Bennett, star of Badge of Fury and Miami Lockdown) is a classy, refined cop from uptown. When the Deckard Crime Syndicate steals a mysterious mineral, Lyman teams up with streetwise colleague Timothy Sanna (Rich Bennett). Together, travel to the Andromeda Galaxy before syndicate boss Xavier Graffin (Greg Hoy) can turn the minerals into a gateway to a mainframe computer game, from where he can rule all communications of the universe. When Marilyn Miranda (Pam Yawbus) comes into the picture, the question of who is an enemy and who is a friend threatens to unravel the whole mission … Discover how the whole slippery can of worms unravels by downloading the album and checking out the Buddy Cop trailer on YouTube. The download includes a code for 50% off Rich’s other releases, including the much-praised Music for Underwater Supermarkets and this year’s gorgeous album On Holiday.”

Beehive Candy

Excerpt: “Not content with releasing a beautiful album of songs towards the end of last year (On Holiday, also on Hidden Shoal), Mr Bennett is back with a soundtrack to a fictional (or is it?) movie. Taking its cue from John Carpenter film music (Assault on Precinct 13 in particular), Bennett weaves an entertaining sci-fi noir atmosphere. Did I mention that it’s free? And comes with a 50% discount voucher for his last two albums, both highly recommended from this direction.”

The Underground of Happiness

Excerpt: “On Holiday is essentially an experiment in the emotionally-ached and the musically placid, several times throughout the album Bennett will be crooning in a theatrical, heartsick demeanor, but surrounded in a lethargic, intentionally-ignorable mashing of guitar wallows and twangy atmospherics… That sense for risky songwriting elevates On Holiday as a whole… the record gets by more on nostalgia rather than memorable songs. That being said, it’s still a helluva lot more interesting than your average, factory-pressed indie-rock album. Rich Bennett is trying to do something incredibly ambitious, and maybe to a fault, taking the essentials of lounge, something almost universally joked about, and recording them in a new context and for a new audience.”

Delusions of Adequacy