By Mehak Oberoi, Assistant Editor-in-Chief
I interviewed Ben Kensok, a saxophonist, keyboardist, and alumnus of the School of Music, where he graduated through the education stream. Now working as a music teacher in Winnipeg, he is the writer and composer for the album Music and the Mirage, which was released on September 5, 2025.
The jazz album includes ten tracks and is 43 minutes long. Recorded in a single take, it’s written to be listened to as a continuous experience; according to Kensok, “This album was created to resemble a live performance, so if you just listen to one song on its own, it might seem kind of abrupt or out of place. But if you start at the beginning of the album and you listen straight through, there are certain songs that transition directly into the next song… ‘I'll Find My Way', ‘Sunset’, and ‘The Watchman's Cry’, which is 4, 5, and 6, lead directly into each other. The same goes for ‘Vengeance of the Diarchy’ [parts one and two]. So if you sit down and you start at the beginning and you go all the way to the very end, you can kind of see the whole picture. And if you can imagine being in an audience, watching a band playing it live, that's kind of the vision that I had going into it.”
I was particularly curious about the heavy symbolism in the album title and the
song titles, which almost presented as an inner dialogue driving each composition,
going from a confused and melancholic process (‘Pacing’ and ‘I’ll Find my Way’
are examples of that) to sudden aggression, featuring themes of violence and
surveillance. When asked about that, Kensok, the writer behind them, had an
explanation for his process. “So the title of the album is Music and the Mirage,
which is kind of based around an experience that I often have, when I’m going through my day to day life. I get distracted really easily, and sometimes I zone out from what's going on. Usually, it’s because I'm thinking about music, and the different melodies and harmonies that are going through my head. So Music and the Mirage is just a compilation of all those different things that I'm hearing in my head that aren't necessarily real, much like a mirage. You think it's there, but it's not actually there.”
As for individual song titles, Kensok explained: “The tune ‘Samba de Meia’ translates from Portuguese to English, to be the sock samba. And it's because my last name is Ken-Sock. And so I was like, oh, this would be a fun way to to name that. Some of the other more specific names, like ‘The Watchman's Cry’ and ‘Vengeance of the Diarchy’ - those are really intense titles. But what I did was I actually wrote these short stories that were based around these ideas, which had the same titles. So there was this whole story of this epic tale that was going through my head as I wrote the music. And you can see, if you read the story and you also listen to the music in those songs, you can kind of hear the story progress.”
For many current music students at BU, releasing an album is a major career goal. For Kensok and the band, the idea originated slowly. “Back in January,” Kensok says, “I had the privilege of recording on Esteban, our drummer’s, album, which was released back in February, called What Blossoms for Bloodshed. That was my first time playing on a full album. And as we were working on it, I just saw his vision come together, and I was thinking that I've been writing all this music for years and I haven't been able to do a whole lot with it. That's when I thought it'd be fun to put my own project together, and I put a lot of time into it. It was arranging, composing, rehearsing, and then we did recording. We did mixing, and then mastered the audio. So it's a long process, which was new to me, but I was very excited about taking on the challenge.”
The album is available to stream on Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music and BandCamp.