Blanck Mass - Blanck Mass

When London's Benjamin John Power isn't busy being one-half of Fuck Buttons, he's Blanck Mass, a mysterious new player on the synth-drone circuit. There's none of the pummelling euphoria of Fuck Buttons here, though. In this record, he pitches a low-end drone against twinkling, spacious high-end warmth to very satisfying effect. It's pretty cosmic and deep, and the tones become quite involving. I think there's some heavily processed field recordings bubbling away underneath in certain places. Although he sticks to pretty much the same set of tricks here, the individual tracks are varied enough for you to know where one ends and the next begins, which can't be said for all of this type of stuff. Each begins with a pretty simple, minimal sound, and then gradually builds as more layers of noise are piled on top. There's tunes, too. Very, very slow tunes, but tunes nonetheless. Like that marvellous recent Mist album, this is ambient/kosmische music that even newcomers to the genre should easily enjoy. It doesn't test the patience and there aren't any unlistenable bits.