Minute Taker’s new album The Oblivion will arrive in early 2026. Help bring this 80s-inspired follow-up to Wolf Hours into existence by pre-ordering exclusive bundles of Limited Edition Vinyl, CDs and Merch.
Hello!
Ben here (aka Minute Taker) and welcome to the crowdfunding page for my new album The Oblivion. This record has been five years in the making and I’m beyond excited to finally share it with you! 🤗
As an entirely independent artist with no label and no team, your support is truly what makes my releases possible.
I’ve put together some exclusive bundles featuring Limited Edition Vinyl, CDs and Merch that you can pre-order now. Everything will be shipped around March 2026 when the album is released, and some of these items won't be available after the crowdfunding campaign ends.
Each pre-order directly helps me to cover the costs of releasing the album, from mixing and mastering to manufacturing and promotion. It's not cheap putting out records and your support truly makes all the difference.
Thank you so much for helping me bring The Oblivion into existence. I hope you’ll enjoy disappearing into it's 80s-inspired cinematic synthpop universe as much as I have over the past five years.
Ben x
I started writing and recording the album in 2020 as I was finishing off my Wolf Hours album.
I was still very much in 80s synthpop mode but these new songs felt like the next chapter, a sequel of sorts but darker, more expansive, more cinematic.
Again, all set at nighttime, each track seemed to be from the perspective/voice of a different character, different extensions of myself, each lost in their own way and seeking something.
Themes started to emerge: this constant push and pull between darkness and light, control and surrender, human and cosmic.
I love to walk around my town at night when everyone’s asleep. It’s so beautiful, with the street lights twinkling on the misty hills in the distance. A lot of these songs came during those walks. The Oblivion is a very nocturnal album.
I’d often come back and watch space documentaries to get to sleep. I’m fascinated by the vastness of it all. It reminds me how incomprehensibly tiny we really are in the grand scheme of things. I found these themes creeping into the songs lyrics.
'Into the Dark' single cover. Photo by Malc Stone 2025
I was very much inspired by the mood of 80s films like The Terminator, The Lost Boys and Blade Runner. I love the visual aesthetic of those films, especially the latter - it creates it’s own little universe and I’d find myself listening to Vangelis’ wonderful soundtrack a lot during my night walks.
Scenes from Blade Runner (top) and The Terminator (bottom)
I found myself weaving tape recordings into the music - fragments of inner thoughts, diary-like confessions. I’m not the most confident speaker, but I love the warm distortion of the tapes.
When I was a teenager, I always carried a dictaphone with me to capture song ideas when they came, so this felt like a natural extension of that.
Photo by Malc Stone 2025
In 2024, I was commissioned by Waterside in Manchester to create an audiovisual performance for their outdoor Prism Festival. I worked with director Brett de Vos and lots of other talented people to create a short film Nocturnal Monologues, centred around 3 music videos for songs I was developing for The Oblivion album.
It gave me the opportunity to bring to the screen the visual world I had been imagining.
I'll be releasing the videos for the album's 3 main singles in the run-up to the album's release in early 2026.
Scene from Nocturnal Monologues. Expect some dancing in my upcoming music video!
For the album's artwork, I decided to do everything myself this time. It’s been hard but liberating to take full creative control. I drew inspiration from 80s vinyl sleeves and movie posters, and I’ve always loved those Japanese obi strips you’d find on import albums so I made that a central part of the design.
So anyway, have a look at the bundles of exclusive Vinyl, CDs and Merch I've put together to see what you fancy. And thank you so much... I really couldn't be releasing this album without your support!
Ben
x
