While some of us here at OUTdependent sat through the pounding, chaotic existential mind-fuck cacophony that is Black Dice, I made my way upstate to the house of Mr. Sebastian Blanck, once the fourth member of the Black Dice. I tagged along with my friend, the talented young percussionist Kiril Sandor Orenstein Bauch, to a rehearsal with Mr. Blanck for a festival he has been asked to play at, up in Wassaic, New York. Everything about Sebastian Blanck, from his
disheveled Wafro to his fingers that have dragged paint across the white-washed walls of his massive one-room studio how a man content in his station. Once a member of one of the loudest thrash-post-punk-noise-rock-oh fuck it they were just really loud. Stop trying to put baby in a corner with your genre-bending, Black Dice! Anyway, the last thing Sebastian Blanck is now is loud or genre-bending. Blanck’s pop-folk-rock stands firmly in the footsteps of 60’s and 70’s giants like Neil Young or The Band. Not in any sort of pretentious way, or with an overwrought sense of irony. Blanck’s music approaches its influences with grace and humility, and is comfortable and worn in just like the Blanck home in the peaceful recesses of New York State.
In the days since Blanck departed Black Dice (mid 1990’s), he’s made quite a name for himself as a painter: his practice studio’s primary function is that of a painting studio: his own work is filed in massive canvas-holder-things that dwarf everything else in the room. Vivid monoprints of people parachuting onto lawns in their Sunday best hang on the walls. Sebastian explains that’s the work of his wife Isca, who paints as well. They have a one year old son together. All this domesticity plays a part in Mr. Blanck’s tunes, which have an affection for past places and events which only the healing salve of time can cultivate. There’s romance and retrospection in songs like “I Blame It On Baltimore,” and simple, unpretentious melancholy on “At Arms Length.” Sound delicious? It is.
That same inner peace that floats through the songs is reflected in Sebastian’s attitude towards Black Dice. “We were just a bunch of kids making noise and breaking stuff. I realized that the music kind of wasn’t my thing, but we remain really close friends, we’ve known each other since college.” When asked about whether he fancied the new, electronic material Black Dice is putting out these days, Sebastian sort of shrugs. “To be honest I haven’t heard all of it. I’m excited that they’re still excited about what they’re doing.”
The practice I attended was in prep for a festival up in Wassaic, aptly named the Wassaic Project, which showcases mostly artwork, but has some great musical acts as well. You can learn more about the project at this exact location.
The man paints to boot: the picture to the right is a painting of Sebastian and his wife Isca on a small stroll. Enough plugs for now, but I really like this guy, so you should too.
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