432 PRESENTS…

The Golden Dregs might be on the project of just one man, Benjamin Woods, but beyond that it’s a lot of different things. “It’s adopted the guise of a bar-band, a lonely man with a piano, a singer with a backing band, and an awkward and insecure karaoke performance,” says Woods. “I think of The Golden Dregs as a project as opposed to a group or a person. It’s a platform for me to explore different musical avenues.”

It makes sense that The Golden Dregs, which is led by the rich baritone croon and Americana-tinged tones (think Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields collaborating with David Berman of Silver Jews with Dan Michaelson making the brews) of Woods, would encompass so many things after a period of such instability and movement for him. Cornwall, Manchester, Cornwall, Germany, back to Cornwall and then onto London. Woods has spent the last several years ricocheting from place-to-place, shifting from a cockroach-infested place in Manchester to a failed relocation to Germany that resulted in him having to temporarily move back in with his parents - all the while searching for a place of stability to make his second album after 2018’s Lafayette. Yet for someone who has been such an itinerant in recent years, Woods has made a record with a distinct and coherent personality that radiates the feeling of someone who has finally found where they need to be and where they want to go.