A glowing blue neon face against a pitch-black background. A jagged hooked nose, a witch-like beckoning finger. The cover art for Ben Fox Smith’s latest album draws me in with the same strange, magnetic pull I last felt decades ago staring at the cover of Ottfried Preußler’s Krabat. Even without moving images, my imagination is running wild.
But the album beginning is far from eerie. Instead, it surprises with Bach’s Prelude (BWV 846) from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The familiar theme is played on a tremolo guitar, accompanied by strings, layered with an ethereal vocal melody, all fenced in by a stubbornly grooving beat.
Next comes ‘He’s On His Own, Oh No’ and ‘Thumb as Knife’, two tracks that deepen Smith’s love for noises, sounds, and angular collages. Compared to his already experimental previous album, Drink the Tears of Sleeping Birds, these songs climb to a new level of complexity. There’s tinkling, crackling, gurgling, and hissing everywhere. ‘Thumb as Knife’ in particular, with its unconventional timing and disorienting chord progressions, feels like it belongs in the soundtrack of an avant-garde modern dance documentary on ARTE. It’s the only track on the album that leaves me genuinely puzzled.
‘When I’m on Tiptoes’ shifts next into what could almost pass for a melancholic Radiohead ballad, while ‘Text via Memory’ dives back into Smith’s trademark quirkiness. Here, synths bubble electrically, only to be joined by a detuned acoustic guitar and a drunkenly staggering J Dilla-inspired rhythm. The beats never quite let you predict where the next hit will land.
One of my favorites is ‘The Mylk Jug’s Dark Mouth’, a feverish track propelled by a stomping rhythm, Arabic-inspired synth lines, and heavily autotuned vocals. The result feels like slipping into a musical hallucination.
Interestingly, Tiptoes becomes more accessible towards its finale. ‘Wanted You Back, Every Part’ is a tender ballad that briefly echoes part of the melody from ‘Give Peace a Chance’—though maybe that’s just my imagination. My personal highlight is ‘When We Glow Is When We Die’, a soaring anthem supported by a choir of male voices in the chorus. It’s magnificent.
‘Heart of Wood’ shifts gears again, driven by guitars and straight-ahead energy, its chorus carrying a vocal line reminiscent of Anthony Kiedis at his best. ‘Demented Behaviour’ rounds things off with a pulsating rhythm and a bassline that commands attention.
When I’m on Tiptoes I Feel Like a God is a sonic Wimmelbild, a sprawling picture crammed with musical details, textures, and hidden corners. This isn’t an album to casually throw on in the background. It challenges the listener to dig deep, to discover something new with each spin. Rarely does anything here lodge itself immediately in your ears, but for those who love a challenge, this album is a goldmine.
When I’m on Tiptoes I Feel Like a God is available now as a digital download via Bandcamp and to stream on Spotify
Ben Fox Smith: Facebook / Instagram / Bluesky / Bandcamp / Spotify
Review by Jens Krueger
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