For singer-songwriter 1010benja, genius happens spontaneously, involuntarily, and, possibly, divinely. “It’s like in the Bible, when God says, ‘I’ll come like a thief in the night… No man shall know the date or the hour,’” he says. “Well, this is how it works with the best songs. They just come.”
On the Tulsa-born, singer-songwriter and producer’s long-awaited debut album Ten Total, 1010 assembles just these kinds of lightning strikes. Across 10-tracks, including the previously released singles “I Can”, “H2HAVEYOU” and “Peacekeeper”, 1010 layouts out a compelling exhibit of his distinctive production style and vocal range, adding to his sparse but mighty, critically acclaimed catalog which includes 2017’s single “Boofiness”, the expansive 2018 singles “Wind Up Space” and “Ultimaybe”, the stripped-back single “Dobby” in 2020 and his 2021 stand out single “High.”
Ten Total was recorded over the past couple years between his bedroom in Kansas City and Los Angeles studios, the album plays not unlike a punk record: ten songs, back-to-back and to the point, showcasing the outer limit of 1010’s skill, passions, and curiosities up to that day. On his debut, 1010 exposes his inner language. His take on pop is straightforward until you listen closely. On “Peacekeeper,” he employs a hasty Detroit street-rap flow to namedrop Star Trek and the art film work of Matthew Barney. On “Waterworks,” we encounter the dual nature of good and bad, self-love and self-abuse. And impassioned love songs, like “Twin” and the single “H2HAVEYOU,” provide the heart of the project: blissed-out hand-in-hand anthems that catalog the free-fall of falling in love.
His fixation with the number “10” nods to a divine completeness, the union of two sides (“1010”): love and sex are potent muses throughout his work. It is here that, if not in sound, his rock core endures in spirit. “That’s rock and rolling,” he says. “You know, rock and rolling. You’re you’re you’re literally moving and shaking, in congress with life and love. That’s what that shit means. I like that Luciferian rebellion that Muddy Waters was holding down, that you would hear from Jimmy [Hendrix]. That, just, nasty stuff I guess. Unhinged. Like coming right out of the belly of the beast. Like a bat out of hell.”
