Tom Whitman met up with Kent ambient rockers EBEN when they made their debut appearance at Greenbelt Festival.

Eben

I was in the Underground venue on the Saturday at Greenbelt to see a band called Eben, largely unknown by Cross Rhythms until now. Eben are from Canterbury and came about as the transition of a solo project from the band's lead singer Ollie Knight. Their onstage sound is breathtaking with gradual leaps from quiet cello parts to an all-out rock-scape, drifting with ever tender vocals. With songs like "Valance Streets" they constantly move in a sullen, ambient state and from frenzied clanging guitars to the soft melancholic touch of strings and piano. Saying not more than a simple and polite thank you after each song, they left the crowd clamoring for more. I was keen to meet up with Evan post-gig to discuss their art. With the festival in full flow on the sunniest day of the four, I sat on the steps of the Grandstand with Ollie Knight (guitar, vocals), Lucie White (strings, piano), Greg Struthers (bass) and Shane Thatcher (drums).

Since forming in April 2006 Eben have released the 'Brightness EP', changed their rhythm section and played a prodigious gig at Soul Survivor. Ollie spoke about the songwriting process: "It's good that we play around with a song and think what would sound really good there, if we were watching a band we like. I've got kind of a vision of sounding like aspects of U2. I like listening to songs with a really nice melody, well-constructed to build up to a really amazing frenzy, with everything building up together. It's just about playing around with songs sometimes. We have had a couple of songs that we have changed quite recently that we have actually been gigging with a lot like 'Fleet', which is about standing up and being noticed with regards to faith in Jesus. We had always played the break in that one, and once we accidentally played it twice and it worked. It's about looking at songs and seeing what can be done. Sometimes it produces interesting results. These guys are amazing. We get together when we're all in Canterbury and everyone one of us seems to love getting together and practicing so it's a real joy."

Even clearly take a lot of influence from bands who dabble in rock's experimental virtues such as Radiohead, Arcade Fire and Sigur Ros, with equal elements of more accessible melody driven songwriters like Coldplay and Damien Rice, Rice's cellist Vyvienne Long being a particular influence on Lucie. Their songs are full of faith and hope as Ollie emphasised: "Quite a few of the songs explore a change in a person, sanctification and purification. And when I write some of the songs that's the thing that comes back to me. Maybe God's pressing it on my heart, the joy and change that goes on in a person's heart when they give their life to God. The Bible's a massive literary influence because it's the bedrock of our faith. Other times I really like reading poetry, other times I just like looking around and picking bits out that I've seen or read. For me it's about writing songs that will mean stuff to people. They might not necessarily see it as a biblical meaning but they will discover a bit more when they read that we are Christian and they will look a bit deeper into songs."

What strikes me about Ollie is his ability and desire to mould song ideas and hopeful imagery in unexpected circumstances: "One of the songs we played tonight was called 'Turning Metal Into Gold'. There was a leaflet in my housemate's room for a drama production up at uni and it was about an alchemist who was turning really shabby metal into precious gold. And I was like, 'Hang on this is like what God does to us when he transforms us from what we were into what we are now, becoming like Christ and being seated in heavenly places.' I thought it would be really good to write a song about that. It's got lots of images of changing from a bud. I love reading through the Psalms. That's the best poetry, songs about God. It's whatever I read and see, and random stuff that could be worked into a song somehow."

Lucie White

In asking them what their vision is as a band who sing about their Christian faith but not in an explicit, traditional worship style, they proved to be as thoughtful in this area as they are about their music. Bassist Greg explained: "We felt that the band should all be Christians. That's our vision but we don't want to be outwardly Christian but do it a bit more like Athlete. Underneath it all people know that Athlete are Christians but they're playing out there in the secular market, and are spreading the love of Jesus just through their music, and that's kind of what we aim to do. All the songs are based on God's love and provision for us."

For an experimental band who sing about their Christian faith one might consider Eben to be finding their way in a rather rare niche in the market, but their music and message are undoubtedly accessible to a wider audience. They have none of the pretension that certain critics mistakenly aim towards more experimental or progressive music and they reflect on their gigging experiences with doses of humility. Regularly competing with unpredictable elements, some of their more ill-fated gigs include playing in the rain, competing with an England international football game in a student bar, playing behind a screen ala Gorrilaz minus the animation and rather unfortunately having to cancel a gig when a support band spilt beer down the electric system. Drummer Shane explained how they squeezed into the bill at the student bar showing England vs Brazil: "It was all quite funny really because a lot of the punters were lairy and come half time they were like 'right you can play now' and the game started again and we stopped and at full time they were like 'you can play again', and we squeezed the rest of our set in right at the end."

Despite such funny yet frustrating gigs, the vision remains clear to express their faith in Jesus through creative and musically experimental ways so as to reach not only Christians, but those who will be provoked by the depth of lyrical content to ask more questions. Plans are afoot to set up a mini studio in Ollie's bedroom for purposes of demo material, and then to hook up with a producer to possibly record a full-length follow up to the 'Brightness EP'. Eben are ambitious and also not wanting to get ahead of themselves, as Ollie concluded: "Even if we didn't get any further than we are at the minute I would feel really privileged and blessed that we've been able to play at places like Soul Survivor and Greenbelt and secular festivals. It's a great privilege to have your band's songs played through some really big speakers at a great venue. Even if we didn't get further than we are now I'd still love writing songs and working with these guys. But I think if eventually we got signed by a little independent local record label, it would be amazing. But we don't want to fit into a mould of where our record company would want to take us. My view is to keep on writing songs that we like to play. We don't want to fit into the conventional mould."