Blank Realm – Mind Peril (Not Not Fun)

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It’s awesome when a band forgets the trappings of its genre and goes a bit bonkers. Brisbane’ Blank Realm has done just this of late, to the extent that their breakthrough 2007 release Free Time seems comparatively dreary only 12 months onward. The group has kept busy with a slew of releases including this most recent one for Not Not Fun, their second on a label that has become synonymous with a recent trend of noise/drone bands bleeding colourful psych influences into their music, Pocahaunted and Sun Araw being two prominent examples.

In keeping with that trend, Mind Peril is a decadently weird album – one that abandons any notion that Blank Realm is rooted in the blissed out monotone of drone or the consistently miasmic grind of noise. Elements of these styles can be found here, but they’re brewed with kraut rock, Dead C style rock demolition and arcane synth atmospherics. Blank Realm is clearly concerned with texture and teasing new emanations from their instruments, but they’re not afraid to apply a few rock tropes either. “800 Birthdays’ initially sounds like something at the business end of Starving Weirdos’ Eastern Light: sparse gurgling sounds of indeterminate origin boil beneath piercing synth stabs for a small eternity before the gradual onset of guitar squall beckons a motorik rhythm, glistening with coarse guitar textures and smooth vocal coos. Elsewhere “Scorpion Cola’ channels the mystic feedback hypnosis of Les Rallizes Denudes. Blank Realm sculptures their feedback here, producing bursts of scattershot fuzz that are moulded into something almost resembling a riff. Perhaps there is a “real’ riff flailing under the murk somewhere.

It’s not the desire to unearth hidden elements that makes Mind Peril an enduring listen though; the band’ ability to conjure vastly contrasting sound worlds is their most impressive feat. In a climate where similar groups are happy to thoroughly explore the tiniest of niches, Blank Realm take the dabblers approach and create a terrain that, while still rugged, is likely to appeal to fans otherwise indifferent to this style of improvised hallucinatory noise. It should be a pleasure to check out where Blank Realm end up next, and whether it’s anything like this.

Shaun Prescott

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