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May 15, 2025 By Caleb Campbell

Ben Hackett first got his start playing bass with the Athens, Georgia-based indie outfit New Madrid, and these days he spends much of his time as an engineer and session player at Athens’s Chase Park Transduction studio. However, in his downtime he’s also been tinkering in his home studio and this year he began making forays in a new direction, releasing meditative and delicately detailed instrumental compositions under his own name.

His 12-track debut album, Songs for Sleeping Dogs, is out tomorrow and it finds him settling into a soothing homespun sprawl of indie, folk, ambient, psychedelic, and new age music, self-produced during late nights in his home studio and co-mixed by Hackett and Jason Kingsland (Deerhunter, Belle and Sebastian, Youth Lagoon). Today, Hackett is sharing an early listen to the full record, premiering with Under the Radar.

Although the entire album is made up of immersive instrumental compositions, the record feels much more than simply a background soundtrack for everyday life. The opener, “Between Sleep,” is rooted in folksy psychedelia, led by a hypnotic guitar melody, misty woodwinds, and a sprawling song structure. The tranquil ambient swirls lock the track into a meditative flow state, drifting a soothing warm pool of melodies. The record’s other lengthy centerpiece “Loose Changes 2,” operates in a similarly reflective space, gently unfurling and layering on the woodwinds, keys, and electronics. Yet, it is also tonally distinct from the opener, feeling more akin to wandering deeper into a dense, wondrous forest.

Other moments feel refreshingly homespun like the ambling melody and winsome keys on “Tombo Goes on a Walk and We Order Indian Food” or the ringing ambient touches and an immersive guitar groove on “Nylon Bell Pot.” Hackett plays out a lo-fi guitar lullaby with “Songs for Sleeping Dogs #1” before transitioning into a sun-lit walk through the park burnished by carefree horns on the closer, “Tombo Hunts for Bamboo Shoots.” In contrast, “18pp” brings the record into a strange and otherworldly diversion, and “Memory Ornament” offers a near-seamless blend of plinking synths and dreamy folk tones, unfurling like the soundtrack to a verdant video game world.

Hackett says of the record, “Most of these songs were started with an instrument in my hand and my dog asleep either on the couch next to me or under my feet in the studio. It was an exercise in letting my first thought rule and allow itself to develop into a full piece, all while trying to be as much observer as composer. All of the woodwind long tones on the album were performed with as few punch-ins as possible, resulting in songs that I experienced recording as meditative breathing exercises. This got pretty heady when it came to 8-minute songs with around 10 clarinet parts. The hope is that the deep breaths from the recording process can then be translated and transmitted to the listener as a call to slow down, breathe deeply, slow your heart, and let your mind wander.”

Check out the full record below, out everywhere on May 16th via Strolling Bones Records. You can also pre-order a physical copy here.