Bloodhound/ You is the latest release by electronic composer Benjamin John Power.
His solo project Blanck Mass has been ongoing since 2011. After the acclaimed World Eater and Animated Violence Mild, he gifts us with a 2-track release conceived as a 12" vinyl with 2 opposite yet complementary sides.
Bloodhound and You are a yin-yang metaphor exploring the binary nature of the world right now. As we experience some of the biggest divides on the planet, the concept of humanity has slowly become a "split" one. Contemporary society is about separating and polarising, and in that we have lost our most basic need for connection and compassion.
This is definitely not the first time that Power has used music to dive into the most paradoxical and controversial aspects of our time. His approach is usually a sonically direct one, while the intellectual/ interpretative side always displays an open universal nature.
Bloodhound starts in classic Blanck Mass fashion: noisy, obscure, and aggressive on the edges. The raw guitar segments take me to an old-school hardcore punk gig, while the heavily filtered vocals quickly catapult me into a death metal one. When the droning soundscapes start, his recognisable compositional structure unfolds. Gear-shifts in texture and unexpected samples are just a few of the extra colours on Power’s sound palette, one in which all colours eventually mesh into deep black. It's a dimension in between euphoric relief and menace, surrender and resistance. Blanck Mass now feels freer to wander from some of his previous experimental searches to a new higher impactful direction. The acquired "orchestral" flavour he gained from many years of movie scores has now tipped into his electronic mix. The result is one of hypnotic wonder in the most literal sense, meant to paralyse and overwhelm with both beauty and fear. This track is a bridge connecting World Eater to Power's present and future potential.
While Bloodhound shows clear domineering aggression and mesmeric repetition, You is probably the closest he has ever come to writing a love song. With prominent 80s synthwave elements, this could easily be the "prettiest" track in the BM catalogue to date. It feels strange and almost wrong describing it with such a banal aesthetic adjective, but it truly is "pretty" in a larger sense. It also happens to be stylistically the closest composition to Animated Violence Mild in my opinion. It draws power from raising upwards through blissful elegant transitions and build ups. If its counterpart conveys the violence of humanity destroying its very nature, You stands as a universal reminder of what that very nature is.
On this release, the coexistence of melody and belligerence, of fragility and reckless dehumanising power, speak to the constructive and destructive capabilities of mankind.
Once again, Blanck Mass has managed to successfully capture the very essence and social relevance of a moment in time.
