Local artist celebrates album release at ICCA

LEAVENWORTH —  Local musician Benjamin Jay Thomas will celebrate the release of his eighth album, “Behind Your Eyes, The Stars Are Born,” with a release show at the Icicle Creek Center for the Arts (ICCA) on June 20.

Thomas is a singer-songwriter, producer, song coach, and founder of Bring Forth, a nonprofit record label and studio based in Leavenworth. “Behind Your Eyes, The Stars Are Born,” is a record five years in the making, which Thomas describes as his most sonically adventurous record yet. The album blends indie folk roots with the warmth and lift of indie pop, exploring themes of longing and reconnection, imagination, presence, self-discovery, and intuitive wisdom.

In March, Thomas released his single “A World of Our Own,” alongside a lyric video that he hand-animated. Thomas said the work offers a peek into the album’s spirit, which he describes as a “playful, clear-eyed anthem about recovering imagination and dreaming beyond inherited limitations.”

For Thomas, this album is one his inner child always wanted to make. Throughout his career, his work identified with the quieter indie-folk style associated with artists like Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver and Iron & Wine. While he enjoyed this style, he said he felt pulled to create something more high-energy, joyful and pop-leaning. 

“I gave up trying to be cool a few years back and it opened something up. Eight albums in, and at this point in my life, I find I can say things more directly,” said Thomas.

“These songs are my fullest attempt yet to say out loud that our capacity to imagine and dream and create is what makes us alive and human — that the seed of inspiration inside every person is not just an intellectual, metaphorical idea. I'm just deeply aware of how much that matters right now,” he added.

Thomas celebrated the release announcement at The Plant Ally on March 25. The gathering was a part of the Bring Forth Bloom Week, a week-long series of new music releases and artist spotlights highlighting the growing collective of artists that Bring Forth has been cultivating over the past year.

“Behind Your Eyes, The Stars Are Born” releases June 19, followed by a local release show at ICCA’s Snowy Owl Theater at 7 p.m. on June 20. Thomas will perform his new music in a “guided concert” format, melding together storytelling, performance, poetry, mindfulness, breathing, and communal singing intended to give participants space to breathe, be and connect. 

The album is available for pre-order at benjaminjaythomas.com. Tickets for the June 20 show are available at icicle.org.