Ben Howard plays his first Argentina show on a South American tour

Ben Howard will play in Argentina for the first time on Thursday, September 24, at Deseo in Buenos Aires, one date in a run that also carries him to Sao Paulo for his South American debut. Tickets are on sale through Enigma Tickets.

He arrived with Every Kingdom in 2011, a debut released by Island Records, a label chosen for its history with English folk songwriters like Nick Drake and John Martyn. Recorded with India Bourne on cello, keyboards, ukulele and bass and with Chris Bond producing, it reached number four on the UK Albums Chart and went triple platinum with the British Phonographic Industry.

That record carried "Old Pine," "The Wolves" and "Promise," the last of which got heavy television use. It brought a Mercury Prize nomination in 2012 and two Brit Awards in 2013, for British Male Solo Artist and British Breakthrough Act, plus a Pyramid Stage slot at Glastonbury the same year.

The catalogue since has moved steadily away from melodic folk. I Forget Where We Were, in 2014, entered the UK chart at 26 and climbed to number one. Noonday Dream, in 2018, went denser and darker. Collections from the Whiteout followed in 2021, produced with Aaron Dessner of The National at his Long Pond studio in New York with extra sessions in Paris over an 18-month process.

His most recent studio album, 2023's Is It?, was cut in ten days with the producer Nathan Jenkins at Le Manoir de Leon in France. It came after Howard suffered two minor strokes in March 2022 that affected his memory and his speech, and that experience runs through the writing.

The playing is its own signature. Howard is left-handed and sometimes uses right-handed guitars turned upside down, works in alternate tunings, and plays percussively with the guitar resting on his knees, a technique he picked up from the songwriter and guitarist John Smith.

His live history runs through Glastonbury twice, Bonnaroo, T in the Park, Pinkpop, the BBC Radio 1 Big Weekend and Austin City Limits, and in 2014 he headlined the first Somersault Festival in north Devon alongside Jack Johnson. The Buenos Aires date joins the rest of the indie and rock routings in the tour guide.