Sebastian Blanck, “Empire of the Free” & “Black Sanded Beach” MP3s
- story Sam Hockley-Smith
Being a former member of Black Dice and hanging out with DFA dudes is not exactly a prerequisite to make the kind of strong, straightforward folk that Sebastian Blanck makes—but he’s doing it, so why question it? It’s the kind of stuff that’s timeless. There’s nothing here that couldn’t have been done in the last thirty years, but no one did it. Instead it just sounds right. A cursory look at his website (and, um, also ours) shows that Blanck seems to enjoy spending lots of time near water playing his guitar and documenting the meticulous work that goes into completing his songs. Again, just seems like the right move for this dude. But these demos (we only know they are demos because that’s how they’re labeled), they sound fully formed to us—you can hear every guitar string being touched on “Empire of the Free” and there are angelic backing voices rising out of nowhere on “Black Sanded Beach.” If these are demos, our only thought is that Blanck is going to pull the ultimate prank and the final versions will be harsh noise. Until that happens (it will never happen) we’re going to put these on repeat and get psyched for fire pits and frozen over lakes.
Download: Sebastian Blanck, “Empire of the Free”
Download: Sebastian Blanck, “Black Sanded Beach”
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posted on Nov 10, 2009 in MP3 / STREAMS
Premiere Freeload: Sebastian Blanck f. Caroline Polachek, “Thunder” MP3
- story THE FADER
Sebastian Blanck is a really good painter. But because warm, successful pastels seem to be not satisfying enough for him, he’s decided to be a really good musician, as well. The long ago former member of Black Dice is currently finishing a record at Rare Book Room studio and seeded out this lovely piece of soft folk, “Thunder,” a duet with Caroline Polachek of Chairlift. Blanck’s music seems wholly anachronistic to his painting, ’60s wonderment of wind-ridden fields of wheat to their modern crisp activity, smart people at their best. Or maybe “Thunder” is a meeting place of controlled amateur wilds. No plans are lined up for an album’s release, but undoubtedly they will be soon.
Download: Sebastian Blank f. Caroline Polachek, “Thunder”
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posted on May 14, 2009 in MP3 / STREAMS
Audio: Sebastian Blanck Blames Baltimore for New Folk
- story THE FADER
Sebastian Blanck used to be in Black Dice, so you’d expect his solo songs to sound like a chorus of burping frogs making dance music. But it turns out he went in the exact opposite direction and made folk music for rural retreats. Probably not coincidentally, Blanck Blanck wrote these four songs in his painting studio on a lake in upstate New York. Also, DFA are still in his top friends on Myspace, so we wouldn’t be surprised if a James Murphy remix popped up and the entire thing ended up sounding like a wood nymph dance party.
Stream: Various songs from Sebastian Blanck’s I Blame Baltimore
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posted on Oct 1, 2008 in MP3 / STREAMS
