Trot out all of the myth-making musical tropes:
—Band name for a one-person act
– Veil of secrecy around actual one-person
–Face covered in promo shots
–Music is grainy, low-fi basment tapes
And then get ready to allow total license to Blank Dogs, the insanely prolific musical output from one guy named Mike from Brooklyn.
The reason Mike’s allowed any and all of the above telltale trappings of artistic pretension? Because when he emerges from his basement (possibly still masked), he presents music like this:
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A haunting, skeletal ghost of a song, bass high and omniscient like the hand that guides the song’s murky, muddled perfection. I throw this around lightly, but I throw it here: it’s what New Order would sound like if Ian was still around. This is, hands down, one of the greatest single songs I’ve heard in 2009.
There’s really no overcoming what repeated listening to Blank Dogs’ forthcoming debut for In The Red records, Under and Under, does to the emotions. These songs grey the sky, darken the night and then bring the morning’s euphorically sleepy dawn.
For a bit more of a taster, here’s the video for Under and Under’s “Setting Fire To Your House”, which feels only a little less like “Ceremony” brought from the grave to the daylight than “Tin Birds”.
Edit: removed video because it was fubaring our htmls, yo! (hacks)
Blank Dogs Under and Under is out super-soon. Check the BD Myspace, he (they?) are playing a bunch of NY shows.
