Blanck Mass – Shacklewell Arms, London
The Fuck Buttons' man's solo project is strictly for the true believers
Words Luke Turner
Blanck Mass. It’s a name that could be seen as a sarcastic jibe at that lumpen collective of musicians sat in their lonely bedrooms making music that issues forth in a slow, sluggish wash of no-ambition under an aesthetic of lazy Polaroid nostalgia. But Mr Mass (Ben Power of Fuck Buttons) produced a debut album of glorious dynamics and quiet euphoria that, as 2011’s electronic ambient albums go, was arguably second only to Oneohtrix Point Never’s Replica. Originally, Power had never intended to play Blanck Mass live unless as a soundtrack to nature films, perhaps wary of how the music might translate in the live arena.
First up, though, is Lo-Light, a side project of Dominic Butler from Factory Floor. One of the many interesting facets to that group’s continuing evolution over the coming years will be the work of individual artists away from the core production line, and if the Lo-Light set is anything to go by, it bodes well indeed. The music, emanating from a table of wires, plugs and keys, starts pleasantly enough, dinner chimes and glockenspiel immersed in static. It becomes more martial, a minimalist acid workout in a barracks for the Cylon Raider cadet corps, before ending with satisfying abruptness.
There’s an immense and impressive physicality to Blanck Mass’ sound: a corduroy-seam-troubling, cavernous bassiness at work underneath the soaring digital melodies. It’s potent enough that it doesn’t matter that few of us can see the visuals which, to be honest, aren’t much cop: they resemble a G-spot stimulating dildo floating over a dodgy screensaver background. Perhaps something based more upon flora or fauna would have made for a better fit, for this music does conjure images of Attenborough narrating a shot of a surfacing noble sperm whale, taking a breather from its quest for giant squid in the watery depths.
Electronic music of the semi-improvised sort played by men who seem to be strangers to the razor can often be an unrewarding experience. That’s not the case tonight. Lo-Light and Blanck Mass are, as their names suggests, oppositional forces; the former a vision of stern monochrome, the latter a colourful dream — not the cinematic tropes of the ’80s-rooted chillwave crew, but further back than that, to Victorian artist John Martin’s lurid visions of the heaven that awaits all true believers.
