Blank Realm
Day 14 was almost not going to happen… but I’ve pulled myself back from the brink & decided to carry on with this Unofficial Aussie Music Month trawl of trans-Tasman subculture underground pop.
Today let’s get weird & colourful with Blank Realm and ‘Falling Down the Stairs’.
Blank Realm are from Brisbane and (yet) another great band on Bedroom Suck Records. The band has a strong family connection, with siblings Daniel Spencer (drum & vocal), Sarah Spencer (synth & vocal) and Luke Spencer (bass), joined by Luke Walsh on guitar (& production).
Nick at Red Eye Records in Sydney recommended them to me and their latest album ‘Grassed Inn’ was sold to me within about the first 30 seconds of colourful jangling 12-string guitar garage-psych rock. As with so many young Aussie guitar bands at the moment there seems to be a hint of The Clean here in the ‘Tally-Ho!’ style organ on this track in particular and also a Dylan-esque shout of vocals.
The album is great. It is big, colourful, noisy and lush but also quite dark and menacing psych-rock with just enough feral psych weirdness to keep it (really) interesting.
Pop Lib 