Benny Sings

Just the facts: Age – 32; Hometown – Amsterdam, Netherlands; Education – Sonology, Royal Conservatory of The Hague; Employ – joined Sizzer Amsterdam in 2008.

Previous experience: As a student of sonology, a discipline that broadly concerns the study of sound, Sings (born Tim Berkestijn) found a way to combine his interests in computers, music and art. His focus on electronic art music took him down the dark corridors of that genre’s atonal and arhythmical soundscapes before, as he describes it, “I flipped 180 degrees. I was sick of this difficult kind of anxiety-attack music, so I began making sunshine, feel good, warm underbelly music.” That style can be heard on Sings’ three solo albums as a professional artist (he’s currently working on the fourth). He also produced and toured with his Dox label before signing with Sizzer Amsterdam in ’08.

Best work: Sings’ first commercial work, 2009’s Ikea “Boy” via DDB, Berlin, is infused with a jaunty soul-pop sound and graced by the jazzy vocals of Dox label mate Roos Jonker. It fit the bill for the feel-good tone that DDB wanted but Sings’ signature is present in the small traces of emotional tension. “I call it melancholic but it’s more like the happy side of the melancholic feeling,” he says of his sound. “It’s nostalgic, melodic music.”

Mouth music: Milner “Boom” via FHV/BBDO and a set of idents for NCRV from Dawn, Amsterdam are distinctive for their use of percussive rhythms and polyrhythms made with the mouth. Those rhythms were performed entirely by Sings. “It was part of my studies when I was composing those ‘anxiety attacks’,” says Sings of the vocal rhythms. “That was really an instrumental kind of study and I immediately knew that once the voice was involved it came alive for me. Music without voice is really hard for me to experience.”

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