Album Notes

What people are saying about "Big Red Throbbing Heart"...
"Packed with a lethal dose of charm."
St. Paul Pioneer Press
"Stripped down tales of quiet desperation."
City Pages
"Will charm the pants off of you."
Minnesota Daily
"an uncut gem"
Nashville Scene

Ben Connelly, having spent the mid-nineties scouring Minneapolis's southside rock-and-roll ghetto, making records and occasionally touring with his loud and rowdy Steeplejack bandmates, holed up alone for a couple of years to make the quiet, witty, and disturbing songs for "Big Red Throbbing Heart," songs which revolve on the axis of sex. We're not talking Barry White here though, Connelly's songs have always taken place in a world where humor, terror, pain, the real, and the surreal all share one large unruly bed.
Connelly built an indie-folk home for these songs out of virtuosic solo guitar, minimalist piano, splashes of steel guitar, ambient noise, and drums, and an a capella gospel quartet.
Tom Waits, Liz Phair, and Jonathan Richman have all proven that pathos, fiction, and hilarity make a beautiful menage a trois and Connelly follows in their tradition.

Some of Connelly's last band's press clips:

"Konnte Auch von Richard Thomspson sein. 3 1/2 stars"
Rolling Stone, Germany
"These Minneapolis boys have been granted their hillbilly license for a reason."
CMJ
"It's not depressing, it's vital"
Austin Chronicle, TX
"This years most accomplished and compelling debut."
Lansing Capitol Times, MI
"Songs that feel like desperate kisses."
St. Paul Pioneer Press, MN