By Azzam Bilal 
HangupsMusic.com – Robbie Bennett, the multi-instrumentalist and keyboardist whose textured arrangements have long served as the atmospheric backbone for The War on Drugs, has announced a massive expansion of his solo discography. In a move that underscores a period of intense creative fertility, Bennett is set to release two distinct full-length albums, Steloken and Circulation, on December 11. Arriving via the Chicago-based experimental label American Dreams, the dual release represents a staggering influx of new material, totaling 29 tracks that further distance Bennett’s solo identity from the heartland-synth-rock of his primary outfit. To herald the announcement, Bennett has unveiled two lead singles—"Sister" from Steloken and "The Light on Your Face" from Circulation—offering a first glimpse into the intricate, mechanical, and deeply emotive worlds he has spent the last few years constructing.
The forthcoming albums mark Bennett’s first solo output since his 2020 debut, Permanent World, an album that introduced listeners to his penchant for sprawling, ambient-leaning soundscapes. While that debut laid the groundwork, Steloken and Circulation appear to be a more rigorous exploration of the intersection between acoustic resonance and electronic synthesis. The technical methodology behind these recordings is as fascinating as the music itself. Bennett utilized the same keyboard rig he employs while touring with The War on Drugs, but he reimagined its capabilities through a complex chain of hardware. By routing MIDI signals from an acoustic player piano into an Oberheim OB-X8—a modern high-end synthesizer that recreates the lush, analog warmth of the legendary OB-series—he allowed the two instruments to speak in a singular, unified voice. This process essentially turned the player piano into a ghost-conductor for the synthesizer, resulting in a sound that feels both physically grounded and ethereally synthetic.
Beyond the Oberheim, Bennett enriched the sonic palette with layers of Fender Rhodes and vocoder, as well as the Soma Terra. The latter is a particularly specialized instrument, described as a polyphonic microtonal synthesizer equipped with a gyroscope and pressure-sensitive sensors. The use of such an avant-garde device suggests that Bennett is moving toward a more tactile, improvisational form of electronic music, where the physical movement of the performer directly influences the pitch and timbre of the sound. This "microtonal" approach allows for notes that exist between the standard keys of a piano, creating a sense of unease or "otherworldliness" that aligns with Bennett’s stated artistic goals.
In press materials accompanying the announcement, Bennett provided a poetic framework for the listening experience, noting his desire for the music to function like a journey through an "unfamiliar place." He expressed a wish for the listener to keep exploring without ever feeling the need to return to the starting point. This concept of linear, non-repetitive exploration—a sort of sonic psychogeography—is evident in the structure of the two albums. Steloken is the more expansive of the two, featuring 17 tracks with titles like "Sea-Level Horizon," "Darkness in Bloom," and "Universal Interface." These titles suggest a preoccupation with the natural world viewed through a digital lens, a theme that has often bubbled beneath the surface of his work.
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Circulation, by contrast, is slightly more concise at 12 tracks, though no less ambitious. Tracks such as "Norrland Night Train" and "Breathing Glass" evoke specific, almost cinematic imagery of transit and fragility. The lead single from this collection, "The Light on Your Face," hints at a more intimate, perhaps even melancholic, tonal center compared to the broader strokes of Steloken. Together, the 29 tracks represent a monumental undertaking, suggesting that Bennett has used his time between tours to build a private universe of sound that prioritizes texture and mood over traditional song structure.
The timing of these solo releases comes during a busy period for The War on Drugs. Although the band has not released a full-length studio album since 2021’s critically acclaimed I Don’t Live Here Anymore, they have remained active in the public eye. Just last month, the group released "Who’s That," their first new original recording in two years. Bennett’s contributions to that track, as well as his performances on the band’s 2024 live compilation Live Drugs Again, continue to highlight his importance to the group’s "wall of sound" aesthetic. However, his solo work provides a necessary counterpoint to the band’s stadium-ready anthems. While The War on Drugs often looks backward to the golden age of FM radio and heartland rock, Bennett’s solo ventures look inward and forward, embracing the experimental fringes of ambient and electronic music.
The choice of American Dreams as the home for these records is also telling. The label has earned a reputation for championing artists who blur the lines between genres, often focusing on music that rewards deep, focused listening. By aligning himself with this community, Bennett is positioning himself as a serious composer within the contemporary electronic scene, moving beyond the "side-project" label that often plagues members of high-profile bands.
As the December 11 release date approaches, fans are left to parse the tracklists for clues about the albums’ narrative arcs. Steloken seems to move through various elemental states, with titles like "Snowfell," "Footprints in the Ash," and "Cathedral" suggesting a transition from the cold and desolate to the monumental and sacred. The final track, "A Love Song / Universal Interface," points toward a synthesis of human emotion and technological connectivity—a fitting conclusion for an album built on the interaction between a 19th-century mechanical piano and a 21st-century synthesizer.
Circulation appears to be more rhythmic or perhaps more concerned with movement and internal systems. Titles like "Phantom Signal," "ISO Dream," and "MN3009" (likely a reference to a specific integrated circuit chip used in analog delay effects) lean into the technical jargon of the studio, yet they are balanced by the evocative "December" and "Vivere!" This duality—the technical versus the emotional—seems to be the core of Bennett’s solo philosophy. He is an artist fascinated by the tools of his trade, yet he uses them to evoke feelings that are profoundly human and difficult to name.
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The release of Steloken and Circulation as a near-simultaneous drop is a bold statement in an era of single-driven streaming metrics. It asks the listener to commit to a massive amount of music at once, encouraging the kind of immersive exploration Bennett described. For those who have followed his career from his early days in the Philadelphia music scene to the global stages he now inhabits with The War on Drugs, these albums offer the most complete portrait yet of Robbie Bennett as a standalone artist. He is no longer just the man behind the keys; he is a world-builder, a tinkerer of frequencies, and a guide through the "unfamiliar places" of the modern musical landscape.
Tracklist for Steloken:
01 Radii
02 Serendipity
03 Air Signals
04 Sea-Level Horizon
05 System of Warmth, Collection of Jackets
06 Snowfell
07 Darkness in Bloom
08 Sister
09 Moonframe
10 Footprints in the Ash
11 Horse to Lead
12 Lattun
13 Dragging out the Cans
14 Ascent
15 Cathedral
16 Purgatory
17 A Love Song / Universal Interface
Tracklist for Circulation:
01 Breathing Glass
02 Panthalassa
03 Norrland Night Train
04 Vermiculite
05 Change the Clocks (DST)
06 Phantom Signal
07 CACC (Hope)
08 ISO Dream
09 MN3009
10 The Light on Your Face
11 Vivere!
12 December
