Ben is a sound designer, storyteller and spoken-word poet.

In the throes of the chaos that came with the first COVID-19 lockdowns, and with his first breakup, Ben discovered his voice. He picked up a pencil one night in March 2020, and opened the floodgates of his heart and mind to the safest and most secure confidante: the paper. Writing spoken-word helped him excavate his deepest sorrows and celebrate his greatest joys. It became a crucial tool that helped him process everything life was throwing at him as a gay man in his mid 20s. He still relies on this gift today, and will no doubt carry it in his back pocket for the rest of his days.

At the same time, being confined to his apartment and the obligatory long walk outside, he started to become exposed to the world of sound design and audio storytelling through discovering a wide range of podcasts. He listened to news shows, interviews, human interest stories and more, and gained an understanding of the stylistic sound design needs for each type of podcast. He is still a voracious podcast consumer all these years later. And now, he is a student of sound design and engineering on a professional level, and is determined to add this kind of work to his life.

Below, you will find all of his audio projects thus far, allowing the listener a glimpse into his interiority as he experiences life. The course of his work charts his growth - as a person, poet and sound designer. He meaningfully describes these projects in his own words.

Happy listening! If his work speaks to you, and you would like to collaborate on a sound project of your own, please get in touch at bensterlin96@gmail.com.

Go Bright (2024)

‘Go Bright’ is my latest project, and my best yet. As a gay man in my late 20s, moving to a new place and starting a new life, the pieces in this album attempt take stock - to regard with fondness the values I uphold, relationships I cultivate, and healthy habits I adopt, and to embrace with bittersweet sentiment the things and people that growing up has forced me to leave behind for one reason or another. To put it reductively, my Saturn returns on ‘Go Bright’.

Sonically, this album contains my most diverse and immersive sound design yet. Each piece contains a multitude of music and found sound, each with its own aesthetic tailored to the tone and feeling of the piece. The vibe is different on every track, but they all come together as a cohesive body of work. The project is an hour-long, but is finished before you know it.

Judah in Jerusalem (2021)

This is the first full-length audio story that I wrote. Its writing style departs completely from the poetic structures I employ in my other projects. Instead, this project plays like a radio piece - one that you might find on shows like the NYT’s ‘Modern Love’ or WBEZ’s ‘This American Life’. This piece is full of play and whimsy - in its structure, sound design, and voice play. I wrote it as a birthday present for my partner at the time; he is a podcast producer, and I thought it would be an apt and sentimental birthday present. He did too.

Mourner’s Prose (2022)

This short collection (EP) of pieces reflects my healing process after suffering the end of my first relationship. The pieces are deeply rooted in a sense of place, and explores how disorienting it can be when those places are those you can no longer call yours. The final piece, “No Vacancy”, is an 18-minute odyssey centering about the parable of vacancy, or a lack of it. This album contains my rawest, stream-of-consciousness writing, and planted the seeds for the immersive sound design that was to come in the future.

Man Is (2020)

“Man Is”, my debut album as a spoken-word poet, is a meditation on loss and isolation, and how an unhealthy ideal of masculinity can alter and amplify these feelings for the worse. This project was my first foray into writing spoken-word poetry centred around, and excavating my interiority. Though sparse in its sound design, it contains some of my best, most diverse and prudent stylistic writing to date.