In Ferneaux - Blanck Mass: Review
Blanck Mass
is the solo project of British musician Benjamin John Power who first gained notoriety as one half of pioneering drone duo Fuck Buttons. Since 2011 Power has released 5 albums worth of genre bending drone and industrial music under this solo project, and with only two long form tracks on In Ferneaux it promises to be the most experimental outing yet.
Review By Lav:
While I wasn't head over heels for either of the first two Blanck Mass albums in recent years the project has completely won me over. 2017's World Eater featured a number of absolutely crushing long-form industrial ragers that melted my mind with their intensity, but it was the next project 2019's Animated Violence Mild that really knocked me off my feet. That same intense and uncompromising sound is applied to a genre blending set of industrial, drone, electronica, rock and pop songs that sounded truly unique and ended up being one of my favorite albums of the year when all was said and done. I was once again surprised by how quick the turnaround was into the projects next record but the lead single sounded just as exciting and adventurous as I was hoping. While the record is definitely adventurous, it doesn't sound anything like I anticipated with the blend of genres this time around dipping into even more long form ambience, drone and even field recordings making for an experimental and often fascinating listen.
The record is split into two phases each of which hover around the 20 minute mark and go through a number of strikingly distinct compositional moments. Phase I comes first and the entire album opens up with some abstract samples moving between the right and left stereo outputs before a fast paced highly electronic key phrase emerges. The keys spend a few minutes altering in volume and intensity before some spacey vocal samples emerge in the background and start to take over. Around 4 and a half minutes in is when the rest of the instrumentation erupts into the track first with distorted driving guitars then a versatile array of sounds meshed together into an unsettling mix. Once this instrumental is played out there's a total breakdown where some genuine field recordings emerge. I think the environment being channeled is a beach and it is honestly a relaxing interlude between more intense sonic passages.
After a surprisingly long amount of time that the song spends in the field recording it gets phased out by a long drone passage that kicks off with deep bellowing tones before working in a more wiry and abrasive sounds. The harsh tones are really interesting but are also the first things to eventually transition out as the song makes a pretty seamless switch-up into straight up ambient. This passage is surprisingly sunny with dense walls of bright synths soaking its atmosphere in blissful tones. In its fade out the song does briefly return to some field recording like samples before ultimately concluding with completely abstracted waves of industrial instrumentation for its last minute. Phase Iis interesting, experimental and unpredictable. While it definitely lacks in tangible compositional moments and I'm not sure its passages truly build on each other in a compelling way, but the individual moments consistently pleased me with rich sonic details and refreshing experimentation.
Phase II picks up with similar abstraction as Phase I left off with pairing completely unrecognizable vocals with harsh electronics. This turns into a long and personality filled conversation between two characters, while the thematic importance of this conversation is up for debate I do enjoy it while it's on. The song quickly gets out of control after this conversation with a wall of active and fuzzed out textures quickly becoming a total haze.
The next definitive section of the song is first marked by these really distant tribal drum passages that are a total wake-up call as the first piece of tangible instrumentation in a while. However they aren't quite as much of a wake-up call as the woman who is absolutely screaming her brains out that show up in the background of these samples. After these samples play out the song sort of calms down for most of its runtime with a few swift instrumental transitions from this point on. Around the 17 minute mark it finally settles on a hazy piano passage that serves as the primary finale to the song and record. While this isn't the most satisfying ending I could have imagined for the project it does feel like a breath of fresh air and a moment of relief after some of the intense moments that preceded it.
I won't lie to you guys I spent a LOT of time listening to In Ferneaux this weekend trying to organize my thoughts about the record. While the compositions are bold and complex I'm really not sure either of these massive pieces compliment their individual moments any more than they would have by splitting up these incredibly distinct moments into their own individual songs. While I find myself getting lost in many of these fascinating individual passages the long transitions pull me out immediately in a way that a proper decline and transition into a new song wouldn't. That being said there are so many fascinating individual moments here that I find completely intoxicating. From the jittery digitized keys, insane cult like vocal samples or surreal field recordings there is no such thing as describing this records sonic approach in just a few words. The versatility required to pull off these sounds so well would normally lend itself to compositional bliss, but here it feels like Blanck Mass has stumbled into some amazing sounds and made it just a tad difficult to appreciate them all on a single listen. While I am certainly much more positive than negative about the record and still incredibly excited for whatever BJP does next, I can't help but envision a version of this album that was a total masterpiece, where as the In Ferneaux we got was just pretty good. 7.5/10
I'm not blown away by this cover and it's not horrible either. The image behind is too dark to really make anything out but the light flash in the middle illuminates just enough to get a little bit of color back into it. I like the color of the text and it stands out from the background. The little details around are a nice touch to try and give a little more interest to the composition. 4/10
