With Benja Mar’s sophomore album Intumbable, Ben Hammer further distances himself from his project’s previous release, Life Forms, as well as from his background as a keyboardist and post-funk producer in Boston.  

“The big change about my new record is that I’ve been playing guitar,” says Hammer. “I want to be able to sing like Alejandro Sanz. He can perform just as a singer-songwriter if he wanted to, but he performs with a big band cuz he can.”

After producing Jeb Bush Orchestra’s Heist!, Hammer left t

he band he had played and recorded with since college to explore his solo project.

“The point of Benja Mar is I’m writing pop music,” he says. “Deep down its pop music, I don’t think that’s supposed to be a secret. I want to find a global audience.” Hammer fleshed out previous recordings, gave them “a wiggle,” and the result was Life Forms. 

“It’s a reflection of the stuff I was listening to at the time: hip-hop, lo-fi beats, which is where you get the vibe for [the track] ‘Aquatic Accolades,’ which is sort of like video game music,” he adds.

Released August 8, and combining several genres of world music including Afropop and cumbia, Benja Mar’s Intumbable “[is] just heavier, the topics. There’s more poetry. Lyrically, it’s all about me. Songs talk to one another.”

Sun-polished acoustic guitar, samba waves and breezy bilingual poetry buoy the tropical music somewhere on Calypso’s island. “[Spanish] felt more natural when I started to express myself musically. I think I might continue with a bilingual focus, or it might go straight into only Spanish,” he says. ‘Which is why the name’s Benja Mar, it’s the Spanishization of my name.”

Hammer translates Intumbable to mean ‘Un-Knock-Over-Able’.

“I’m sort of making up the word,” he says, “But it’s tongue-in-cheek. Reality breaks expectations. Life isn’t just a fantasy, it is wonder. Be grateful. We believe ourselves to be invincible until we get knocked down.”

While he wanders the transitions between the intimate moments and swells of thick production that characterize the album, Hammer’s lyrics weave a magical realist journey of reconciliation. Hammer confesses: “A lot of this is truly life emotions that I’m feeling that are fucked up, and are deeply important to me at the time I’m working through my emotions.”

Maybe Benja Mar spent studio time with The Weeknd to produce the album highlight, “Cobarde (Coward).” Occasionally startled by a chromatic piano chord, this track’s hesitant rhythm line gurgles like the beat of a tell-tale heart. “I was confused about my relationship,” Hammer confesses. Cobarde‘s lyrics flatly juxtapose diverging sentiments:

I don’t want to make you cry / I suppose I’m just like the other guys. 

I know you’re not the one for me

 I don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone as much as I love you. 

You know it’s true.”

Is he reproachful or persuasive?

“I know there is nothing I can do / Try and move on and forget you

 How it pains my heart knowing you don’t wanna know me. / I suppose that’s just the price you pay. / Yo soy cobarde,” he cries, before his keyboard drifts off into a thundercloud soundscape.

Hammer’s drunken delivery and rough vocals on the blossoming slow-burn “Mi Guitarra” proclaim that he feels “so fucking low.” He clutches at one hope: “Tengo ilusiones,” Hammer reminds himself… until this mantra develops a disillusioned double entendre.

“A good song you’re gonna remember is like a spell; it’s like you want something in your life to change, and you’re singing that might make that happen,” Hammer says. “[There is]

this sort of weird relationship between the artist and the music–and that’s whats so exciting about writing my own music and also lyrics, to open up this whole new world that’s fucking bonkers, and emotionally destabilizing for me, but also exciting. You’re entirely open, it’s like I’m opening up my entire heart.”

For those who search music for silences between the sounds, an immaculate rest–the purest on the album–occurs during “Liberame (Free me)” at 0:50-0:51. I imagine tears of Telenovella passion would stream down Hammer’s cheeks as he bows to an undeniable groove, pleading to be freed. The shimmering, slow-tempo “Tengo Ilusiones (I have illusions)” hits similarly to “Hotel California”–without that bloated guitar solo.

Benja Mar’s keyboard technique and ear for horn fills make the salsa “Como un aguacero (Like a downpour)” my favorite track. “After going through all the dirty emotions, the metaphor is like an afternoon rainshower–finally I’m free,”  says Hammer. “And this is what I’m talking about, the illocutionary power of music.”

“I’ve been uninspired to write more music since I wrote this song,” he adds, “cuz I’m happy.”

“I feel like the value of music boils down what’s the value for the artist, for the writer. That’s really important, even if nobody likes it except for them. It has value because it’s a true expression,” Hammer muses. “There’s something deeply human and beautiful about that, the expression of the universe through the organism.”

In the clear light, fantasy, illusion, every truth and every belief becomes a shadow. On the other hand, beyond our wildest dreams and against our darkest expectations, reality is amazing. For it is wonderful.

Check out Benja Mar’s music, including Intumbable, on Spotify.