Biography
Benjamin Woods fronts the Golden Dregs, a project centered on narrative songwriting that draws its chief inspiration from Raymond Carver and Lydia Davis. Backed by a live band, he issued the outfit’s opening pair of albums in 2018 and 2019 before enlisting London-based electronic/alt-pop artist Vogues and several guest vocalists for the 2020 EP Sorry for Your Loss, which folded synth elements into Woods’ loose indie-rock framework. After pandemic restrictions and unemployment forced relocation and a reassessment, he reverted to acoustic textures for the project’s 4AD debut, On Grace & Dignity, which surfaced in February 2023.
Cornwall native Benjamin Woods first surfaced in 2017 and 2018 with a handful of tracks whose deep timbre, observational writing, and half-spoken phrasing were offset by buoyant riffs and grooves. Two of those pieces appeared on the Golden Dregs’ Lafayette, released in May 2018 via Krautpop! and Art Is Hard Records, where Woods was supported by a six-piece ensemble plus roughly the same number of additional singers. He tracked the follow-up, Hope Is for the Hopeless, in Truro and London with a reduced lineup that again featured his sister Hannah Woods and Michael Clark, both of whom had contributed to Lafayette; the album emerged on Funnel Music in September 2019.
For the next outing Woods shifted direction by partnering with Vogues and recruiting guest singers that included Clark, Anna B Savage, and Issie Armstrong. The resulting Sorry for Your Loss EP was issued in July 2020, after earlier tour and festival plans for the seven-piece Hope Is for the Hopeless band were halted by pandemic closures. By year’s end Woods had been laid off and had returned to his parents’ home, eventually taking a laboring job on a construction site outside Truro—circumstances that shaped the material that followed.
The Golden Dregs returned to simpler arrangements with the late-2021 7-inch “John” b/w “Ultimate Fighting Champion” on End of the Road Records. The project then moved to 4AD for its third album, On Grace & Dignity. Later that year the group issued the covers EP Popular Music Vol. 1, featuring readings of songs by Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, and Caroline Polachek.
Cornwall native Benjamin Woods first surfaced in 2017 and 2018 with a handful of tracks whose deep timbre, observational writing, and half-spoken phrasing were offset by buoyant riffs and grooves. Two of those pieces appeared on the Golden Dregs’ Lafayette, released in May 2018 via Krautpop! and Art Is Hard Records, where Woods was supported by a six-piece ensemble plus roughly the same number of additional singers. He tracked the follow-up, Hope Is for the Hopeless, in Truro and London with a reduced lineup that again featured his sister Hannah Woods and Michael Clark, both of whom had contributed to Lafayette; the album emerged on Funnel Music in September 2019.
For the next outing Woods shifted direction by partnering with Vogues and recruiting guest singers that included Clark, Anna B Savage, and Issie Armstrong. The resulting Sorry for Your Loss EP was issued in July 2020, after earlier tour and festival plans for the seven-piece Hope Is for the Hopeless band were halted by pandemic closures. By year’s end Woods had been laid off and had returned to his parents’ home, eventually taking a laboring job on a construction site outside Truro—circumstances that shaped the material that followed.
The Golden Dregs returned to simpler arrangements with the late-2021 7-inch “John” b/w “Ultimate Fighting Champion” on End of the Road Records. The project then moved to 4AD for its third album, On Grace & Dignity. Later that year the group issued the covers EP Popular Music Vol. 1, featuring readings of songs by Billie Eilish, Lana Del Rey, and Caroline Polachek.
Albums
popular music vol. 1
2023
On Grace & Dignity
2023
SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS
2020
Hope Is for the Hopeless
2019
Lafayette
2018
Singles
