B-Side Guys

Most concept albums announce themselves with hammers. Benjamino works with a wooden spoon. His debut Cucino uses the structure of an Italian meal not as gimmick but as organizational principle, a way to impose order on what might otherwise collapse under its own stylistic ambition. The Sydney-based producer could have easily gotten lost in the poly-jamorous approach he describes—flitting between alt-R&B, funk, disco, and indie soul without anchor. Instead, the menu framework provides just enough scaffolding to let twelve tracks breathe without floating away from each other entirely.

The album’s thirty-two minutes move quickly, each track averaging under three minutes. This brevity works in the record’s favor. Benjamino never overstays his welcome in any particular groove, understanding that repetition can flatten what initially sparkles. “Antipasto” opens things light and undemanding, setting expectation without overwhelming. By the time “9 Minutes” and “Boring With You” establish the album’s rhythmic vocabulary—buoyant basslines, shimmering keys, vocals that glide rather than push—the meal has properly begun.

What distinguishes this record from other genre-fluid projects is Benjamino’s commitment to texture over innovation. He’s not reinventing these forms; he’s polishing them until they catch light from unexpected angles. The disco elements don’t deconstruct the genre’s conventions but rather embrace them fully, confident that execution matters more than subversion. When funk grooves enter the picture, they arrive with classic syncopation and warmth, trusting that the interplay between bass and keys can still surprise when the pocket is deep enough.

The production throughout maintains consistent warmth. Everything sounds recorded to tape even when it wasn’t, that vintage patina applied with enough subtlety to feel organic rather than affected. Synths bloom and fade without harsh edges. Percussion sits in the mix with the right amount of room around it. Benjamino’s vocals—shifting between falsetto and conversational register—get treated as another instrument in the arrangement rather than the focal point demanding primacy. The democracy of elements creates space for repeated listens to reveal different details: a guitar line previously obscured, a keyboard countermelody, the way the bass moves in unexpected directions during what initially seemed like a straightforward progression.

“Primo (The Gatekeeper)” and “Secondo” function as the album’s structural tentpoles, instrumental interludes that mark transitions between courses. These brief passages prevent the record from feeling like a standard collection of singles. They serve no purpose beyond providing breath, moments where Benjamino steps back from vocal performance to let the arrangements speak alone. “Primo” leans into meditative synth work that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Khruangbin record, while “Secondo” introduces jazz-inflected piano before the album’s final movement.

The strongest tracks find Benjamino balancing restraint with movement. “Alpine Air” achieved respectable chart placement in Australia for good reason—it captures the album’s ethos perfectly, maintaining momentum without hyperactivity, allowing space within the groove for every element to land clearly. “In The Shadows” deploys what Triple J’s Simone Strauss accurately identified as “divine” layering, choir vocals and sparkly synths building toward a melodic transition that earns its emotional weight. “Thrill of the Chase,” featuring OPIA, benefits from the collaborative dynamic, two voices trading off in ways that add dimension to what might have felt thin with just one perspective.

“Band-Aid Fix” dials back the energy considerably, piano-led introspection that demonstrates Benjamino’s understanding that albums need valleys to make peaks register. The dynamics pull inward here, vocal delivery more intimate, production stripped to essentials. It’s the closest the record comes to vulnerability without performance, a brief window into whatever emotional core the concept might otherwise obscure.

The challenge with framing an album around a meal is that eventually you run out of courses. “Dolce” and the final two tracks handle this reasonably well, “Dolce” serving as brief palette cleanser before the album concludes with two of its most immediately satisfying offerings. “Own Two Feet” closed out the tracklist deliberately, its position suggesting finality—the meal ending, the bill paid, chairs pushed back from the table. The track’s placement on the R&B charts at number two indicates that Benjamino can craft hooks that connect beyond conceptual framework.

Across Cucino, the writing Benjamino handled solo and the production he executed without collaborators reveal an artist comfortable working in solitude. The cohesion makes sense given single authorship—there are no competing visions pulling arrangements in different directions. Yet this also means the album occasionally feels hermetically sealed, as if made in a room without windows. The vintage textures and meticulous layering create intimacy, but sometimes intimate can drift toward insular.

The “poly-jamorous” descriptor Benjamino applies to his approach captures both the record’s strength and its limitation. Moving fluidly between genres gives the album variety that sustains interest across thirty-two minutes. But fluid movement can also mean nothing fully commits, each style touched lightly rather than inhabited deeply. The disco bursts with confidence but doesn’t linger long enough to build genuine heat. The jazz elements shimmer briefly before dissolving back into the broader mix. Funk grooves establish themselves then yield to the next idea before fully developing their implications.

Still, there’s value in Benjamino’s curatorial instinct. Not every artist needs to push boundaries or explode conventions. Sometimes the work is in selection—choosing the right textures, finding the ideal placement for each element, knowing when to step back and let the arrangement complete itself. Cucino demonstrates that a debut album doesn’t require reinventing wheels, just building ones that roll smoothly.

The meal metaphor ultimately serves its purpose. It gives Benjamino permission to range widely while maintaining thread between tracks. Whether listeners engage with the concept explicitly or simply hear a well-sequenced collection of groove-driven soul-pop doesn’t particularly matter. The structure worked for the artist making it, providing the compartmentalization he needed to complete an ambitious solo project. That the concept doesn’t intrude on casual listening while still offering thematic coherence for those interested suggests Benjamino found the right balance between framework and freedom.

For a debut, Cucino demonstrates substantial command of production craft and enough stylistic range to suggest multiple future directions. Benjamino has laid out his ingredients carefully, proven he can cook with technique and taste. Where he chooses to take that skillset next remains open—deeper into any single genre, further exploration of hybridity, or something else entirely. The meal ends satisfyingly without overfilling the plate.