For today’s song of the day, we have Chernobyl by Blanck Mass. This piece of music was used to haunting effect in 2014’s A Field In England.
Tag Archives: Blanck Mass
Music Video of the Day: Starstuff by Blanck Mass (2021, dir by Danny Perez)
Watch it and try not to be hypnotized.
Enoy!
Music Video of The Day: Love Is A Parasite by Blanck Mass (2019, dir by Craig Murray)
Blanck Mass is back with another unsettling video!
(That’s not a surprise. Blanck Mass kinda specializes in being unsettling.)
This video, which features a retro tv studio going crazy over some sexy apples, feels like a bit of an homage to the early work of David Cronenberg. Keep your eyes open and you’ll even spot a paperback novelization of Videodrome. And, of course, just the idea of loving being a parasite is a very Cronenbergian concept.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Icke’s Struggle by Blanck Mass (2015, dir by Alex Turvey)
Wow. This video’s depressing.
Seriously, I love Blanck Mass. Blanck Mass is responsible for some of my favorite writing music. (And, by that, I mean that I often have Chernobyl playing in the background whenever I’m writing.) Songs like this are all about creating and capturing a mood. And really, I guess how you react to or interpret the song will probably depend on what’s going on in your life when you listen to it. Right now, I’m giving a lot of thought to the circle of life so, when I hear this song, I think about the inevitably of death.
And then I watch this video, where is pretty much permeated with doom. Everything is going to die, even the plants. That’s just the cycle of life. New things will ride to replace the old. Sometimes, those new things aren’t going to be good things but, fortunately, they’ll eventually become old things and then die. And they’ll be replaced by something else. And I guess that’ll keep happening until the sun goes supernova or the Earth gets sucked into black hole or whatever it is that all the fatalists are predicting this week. Myself, I think the world will end someday but it won’t be for at least a century or two so I’m not too worried about it.
(Of course, what would suck would be to discover that reincarnation is a real thing and, as a result, we’re all destined to continually be reborn until we all experience the end of the world firsthand. That would be a really cruel joke on the part of the universe. However, I do not believe in reincarnation. I mean, I know at least half a dozen people who all claim that they were Cleopatra in a past life so they can’t all be right. Can they? If I did believe in reincarnation, I would say that I was probably once Edie Sedgwick. Or maybe Clara Bow.)
Anyway, it’s all about cycle of life. Don’t start singing that Lion King song at me, either. I’m just stating a fact.
(Actually, it could just as well be taking a dig at the infamous David Icke. At least, I hope it’s taking a dig. If Benjamin Power is a follower of David Icke’s, I’m going to be depressed.)
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: Dead Format by Blanck Mass (2015, dir by Konx-Om-Pax)
Today, as they tend to say, is the first day of the rest of your life. What better way to celebrate than with a little Blanck Mass?
Dead Format is off of Blanck Mass’s second album, Dumb Flesh. If a rogue planet ever threatens to crash into Earth and exterminate all human life, Dumb Flesh is something that I will definitely make sure to listen to one final time before the end comes. The video for Dead Format is both exuberant and ominous. You’re not really sure if you want to repent your sins or maybe commit some news ones. This is perfect end of the world music. Listen to this track with the knowledge that you could very well be dead and that all of your hopes and dreams could be rendered meaningless within the next two hours.
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: The Rat by Blanck Mass (2017, dir by John Marsden)
Hi! Lisa here, with today’s music video of the day. The Rat is the latest video from Blanck Mass, the solo project of Fuck Buttons’s Benjamin John Power.
In this video, Benjamin John Power stares straight at the camera while riding through the It’s A Small World ride in Disneyland. He never blinks. He never betrays any emotion whatsoever. Around the 3:24 mark, there’s suddenly a brief shot of a bunch of maggots. All in all, it’s rather disconcerting but I really wouldn’t expect anything less from Blanck Mass.
I want to quote two possible interpretations that I’ve come across for this video. The first comes from Power himself. In a press release, Power stated:
“The video itself is a bit of fun and was filmed on a family vacation, but somehow I feel it represents discontent within a capitalist regime and a world full of sugar-coated shit.”
Meanwhile, on YouTube, Crimewaveddd offered up this reading of the video:
“we get it you’re attractive”
Personally, I think they both sound good!
Enjoy!
Music Video of the Day: D7-D5 by Blanck Mass (2016, dir by Jake McGowan)
When Benjamin John Power, the man behind Blanck Mass, was asked about this haunting and surreal video, this is what he told Spin:
“D7-D5′ is intended as the second move in a game of chess initially instigated by Manuel Gottsching when he released (and named said release) ‘E2-E4,’ the recording which many believe pioneered techno. The video was made by [my] good friend Jake McGowan, and follows one man whilst he struggles to deal with a flurry of emotions and human states which are common during a battle of any size, including a game of chess.”
For myself, I’ll say that this video immediately reminded me of the work of David Lynch. Of course, I’m kind of obsessed with David Lynch’s art right now. Until Twin Peaks has finished its run, I imagine that almost everything is going to remind me of Lynch in one way or another.
Still, this video is almost unsettling as that famous scene in A Field in England, that one that featured Blanck Mass’s Chernobyl playing in the background. Remember that scene?
Well, unsettling or not, Blanck Mass helps me to focus, which considering the intensity of my ADD, is no small accomplishment! If not for well-selected background music, I probably wouldn’t have been able to finish 3,000 of the 3,897 things that I have posted on this site!
Enjoy!
Song of the Day: Chernobyl (performed by Blanck Mass)
Have you seen Ben Wheatley’s A Field In England yet?
If you haven’t, you really should. It’s just now getting an extremely limited theatrical release here in the States, though it’s also available via video-on-demand as well. I saw it earlier tonight at the Alamo Drafthouse (which is the greatest theater in the U.S., by the way) and I’m still working out my feelings towards it. It appears to be a film about a criminal, an alchemist, and a group of military deserters who, during the mid-17th Century, find themselves in an English field searching for a treasure that may or may not exist, while some of them have visions that may or may not be real.
Regardless of whether you think A Field In England is brilliant or just pretentious (and I think a good argument could be made for either conclusion), everyone can agree that one of the more memorable scenes in the film is the “tent scene”. You can watch the scene below, though it definitely loses something when taken out of context from the rest of the film.
The song playing as that unfortunate man walks out of that tent is Blanck Mass’s Chernobyl. And it’s also today’s song of the day!
Through the Shattered Lens 