Listen :: Blank Realm special on Telepath

March 6th 2014

Blank Realm

Blank Realm is one of the most important bands in Australia right now. You’re going to hear a lot about them in 2014.

I went to The Square in Haymarket last Friday for the launch of their fourth album Grassed Inn, released in January on Bedroom Suck. It was a transcendent experience, a rapturous and mesmerising combination of krautrock and Australian pop that, for me, evokes some melodic memory of The Go Betweens.

The message is simple … always go to Blank Realm shows.

Their music is hypnotic and cathartic. Songs that spiral in repetitive cycles between psychedelic freak outs and an easing to relaxed dual vocals and ingenious guitar lines. There’s an innate strangeness that sets them apart from other guitar pop bands. The story is that over the past five or so years they’ve moved from releasing nominally experimental records to become a slightly more conventional rock band. This undercurrent of outsider sensibilities is the intangible magic that makes them so dazzling.

Grassed Inn has received great reviews and new attention from overseas. I knew that FBi Radio listeners were sure to have known or newly discovered this band, so what better subject to explore with a retrospective on Telepath? We look back at their previous releases and listen to bands from their part of the music scene: Naked On The Vague, Holy Balm, Terrible Truths, Superstar, Thigh Master, Sewers, Anonymeye and Wonderfuls.

  • Telepath :: Blank Ream special - March 3

 

Watch Blank Realm live at The Square, shot by Jordan Dorjee for Skydreams:

 

 

Blank Realm’s Grassed Inn was FBi’s album of the week in January 2014.

 

Listen to Telepath with Nick Hollins every Monday night from 8-9pm.

 

Contributor

Read more from FBi Radio