BENEE: Album Release Q+A
BENEE
Ur An Angel I’m Just Particles
BENEE’s Eclectic New Album Review and Special Q+A
NMM had the pleasure of joining a press conference for the release of the ethereal new album “Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles”. BENEE was refreshingly jovial, casual and brought a lot of Kiwi honesty to the room. Her super friendly cat [hilariously named Steve Jobs] also made a guest appearance, very nearly stealing the show. Stella Bennett, the New Zealand-born singer/songwriter who now lives and records in LA, California, has had a few big years opening for Tate McRae and Olivia Rodrigo. With this new record, she’s hoping it’ll push her a little further than her currently self-professed “micro-celebrity” status. Read BENEE’s insights below, plus our four-star review, as we unpack the moments, motivations and quiet shifts that make this new release her most intriguing yet.
On Moving to LA from New Zealand: “The crazy difference in New Zealand to LA, I think, was the biggest kind of factor in changing what my art looked and sounded like, because there's just nothing that you don't see in LA. Literally, I think that I kind of was living in a bit of a bubble when I was in New Zealand. And here, you're just exposed to like some crazy crazy shit that you see on the daily. I think when I first moved here, I also was extremely sensitive. So when I first got here [...] you could kind of see first hand, the zero healthcare vibes that were going on and the homelessness was really quite shocking, because I was like ‘What the fuck is going on in this place?’. That probably did contribute to how existential I felt this year or the last three years because I was just like, wow, ‘What is life?’ and ‘How come it's this, like fucked for so many people?’ ”
On working with her female collaborators: “Luka and Elvira stand out in the album. We only made one track [Off The Rails] in the album together but they are the only female producers that I worked with, which sounds really bad but it is bad how uncommon it is to have female producers in this industry. Like it’s such a male dominated industry. Working with them was [...] a deeper level of comfort and relatability, so it was really a lot of fun and a really special collaboration with those girls.”
On Writing ‘Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles’: “Like I’m writing about everything you know, I’m writing a song about a pigeon, I’m writing a song about random shit. So when it came to writing this album [...] My favourites they all had this through line that was showing the emotional turmoil of moving from New Zealand to LA. How that change was so drastic and watching how that changed me. [The move] also made me ask all these big questions in life [...] I became super existential so I think that was kind of one of the big themes.”
BENEE Album Art
On her film Debut in “Head South” and how it influenced the album: “I was like, this would have been a really fun time [the 70s] to listen to music and yeah, bringing some elements from that… It made me realise that sometimes a real hardcore gig, the people in the crowd like smashing their head and shit, they’re having the best time because that music is so intense and pulls such strong emotions out of you.”
On Writing for Nobody Wants This and NewJeans: “Actually with the “Nobody Wants This” Soundtrack it was a pre-existing demo that I had which I was potentially going to put on the album [...] It’s a really cool thing that songs that might not have been used can have a different life in something like a series or film. I wrote a song [How Sweet] for a K-Pop group called NewJeans and that was a brief, like they wanted a certain song. It’s a different kind of challenge you know a different way to express yourself when you write for someone else - just a lot of fun.”
On playing at Home in NZ: “Laneway is still up there in my like top two festivals in the world. Playing in New Zealand and Australia just feels like home [...] There’s a lot of comfort there and warmth, kinda like feeling you’re playing to your hometown, feels so special. I miss home so much so I’m just excited to come back and reconnect with my friends, my family and my audience there [...] Festivals in New Zealand are the best.”
BENEE: Cinnamon Pictue
Album Review: Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles
Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles is an eclectic mix of emo-pop that drifts between floating, surreal tunes and rap-leaning influences. Some listeners might see this variety as a drawback, and at times a more cohesive vision would have been welcome. Even so, the album feels remarkably polished and, despite the shifts in genre, BENEE manages to keep the production rooted in her signature vibey electro-pop sound. The chaos of moving from the serene calm of New Zealand to the intensity of Los Angeles has clearly seeped into the music, swapping the beachy ease of her earlier releases for a more intense, lucid dream-like tone.
The highlights begin with “Chainmail”, a song that captures one of the album’s central motifs. BENEE has spoken about exploring the idea of putting up walls or protecting oneself while making the record, and “Chainmail” embodies this with a danceable moody energy aimed at anyone who hides behind emotional armour. “Prey4U” lands as another sad-but-upbeat anthem, dealing with rejection and the end of a relationship in classic BENEE fashion. She has a rare ability to turn heavy topics into something surprisingly infectious, and this track is another prime example.
The real standout is “Underwater”, which captures the shimmering, expansive energy of an M83 or Tame Impala gig. The production mirrors the aquatic theme with echoing vocals and submerged synths, but what truly elevates the track is the marriage of that rich soundscape with the soaring melody of the chorus, “My head is underwater, a puddle full of my tears”. It’s another severely sunken dance track, continuing the theme of BENEE finding energy in the chaos.
BENEE has structured the album to mirror the phases of a mental breakdown, and it succeeds convincingly in creating that sense of emotional turbulence. The more chaotic early tracks eventually give way to moments of confidence and self-worth, peaking with “Princess”, which features a polished contribution from PinkPantheress. The record then winds down to its closing track “Heaven”, a cathartic reflection on loss and the difficult thoughts that follow when someone you love slips away.
Overall, Ur an Angel I’m Just Particles is BENEE’s most complex, experimental, and refined album to date. While the individual singles may not reach the heights of her earlier mega-hits, the project as a whole captures the chaos of a mind unravelling, threading it together into a cathartic collection of dance-ready emo-pop. It is messy in all the right ways, and all the more compelling for it.