Pastel Blank

Art-rock and funk join hands in a marriage of stutter and groove, officiated by Pastel Blank. Formed in 2017, the Victoria-based project is led by Angus Watt. Pulling influence from the jerky rhythms and genre-blending curiosity of <a href="spotify:artist:2x9SpqnPi8rlE9pjHBwmSC" data-name="Talking Heads">Talking Heads</a> as well as the interlocking guitar-work of Canadian post-punk luminaries <a href="spotify:artist:2uf32eac3VFGHBonRKaLXQ" data-name="Women">Women</a>, the music of Pastel Blank cloaks experimentation in pop-minded song structure. Skeletal, wobbly guitars squeeze around the propulsive engine of thumping bass and drums, driving the beat forward as Watt’s percussive voice weaves a stream of cryptics into tongue-in-cheek wordplay reminiscent of <a href="spotify:artist:0WISkx0PwT6lYWdPqKUJY8" data-name="Stephen Malkmus">Stephen Malkmus</a> or <a href="spotify:artist:0dD9iGfh8v1VI2Ibf6b37P" data-name="Dan Bejar">Dan Bejar</a>.


In February 2020, Pastel Blank released Cinema Is Cheap, a standalone single written and recorded in a hazy fervour over the course of one night in a small, airless room at a former band house. In December 2020, writing and demo work on Pastel Blanc, the band’s debut EP, commenced. The album, which was produced and engineered by David Parry (<a href="spotify:artist:4ftctxasGrW5Ud5Pbw6kWq" data-name="Loving">Loving</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:03uMw43UVu9MsQCcHVSGjX" data-name="Alice Phoebe Lou">Alice Phoebe Lou</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:56j1ors0OeFiC0xHIclqGb" data-name="Jons">Jons</a>), is a tightly packaged collection of jittery and joyous songs, oblique stories, and above all - a through line groove to move the listener.