Meet Blankat

These are some uncomfortable and uncertain times. It is times like this that humans crave security, and stability. What better way to get that than by reaching for a soft BLANKAT?

Splitting their time between Philly and NYC Blankat is the emotionally driven indie rocking-alt popping outfit of my dreams. Much like an actual blanket, their sound is all-encompassing, warm, and inviting. Their Self titled album comes out today, give it a listen and get to know this lovely group of people.

FIRE FIGHTERS: A Mad-Lib by, Blankat

When I was ten years old, my LARGEST ambition in life was to be a firefighter -- but here I am, nothing but a METAL CORN. If I were a firefighter, I'd get to wear a huge, red MATZO BALL. And I could ride on the fire engines that carry 80-foot BOXES THAT ARE ON ME and travel 8008 miles an hour. When fire engines blow their HOT DOGS, all cars have to pull over to the side by the POTION SELLER. Fire departments have SLYTHERIN wagons as well as pump trucks that carry SOUPY hoses that pump the STRONGEST POTION into burning BUNNIES. Firefighters have to go into MEDICINAL buildings and fight their way through the smoke and WEED to rescue any FOO FIGHTERS who may be trapped inside. We should all be thankful that our firefighters are on the job at the twenty-four-hour "DISTURBED" CONCERT.

Would You Rather

have an enormous set of antlers or seven-foot-tall stilts for legs?

Ivo: I personally would rather have antlers because I am NOT tailoring every single pair of pants that I buy!  Also, I could use some intimidation factor- I’m only 5’1”. 

PJ: I’m leaning towards stilts. Getting up past 6 feet has been a lifelong goal of mine. 

Henry: Antlers would up my metal cred. 

Some questions with Blankat

How did Blankat come to be?

Abby: We all attended Oberlin College in Ohio. In late 2017, Ivo had a bunch of demos posted on soundcloud, just some great shoegazey, reverb goodness that definitely felt like they could evolve into something bigger. I was abroad at that time, and they were saying how they had been playing some music with Henry, and wanted to grow that into a full band. Me and Ivo lived across the hall from each other in our freshman dorm, and became very close, partly through a shared love of music. Happy to say they introduced me to the Cocteau Twins, one of our big influences as a band.  When I got back to Oberlin in the beginning of 2018, we recruited PJ and Reuben. We didn’t all know each other very well, but we were all itching to make music collaboratively, and once we started playing and showing each other songs we had written, it was all very very natural and organic. Now we’re all best friends basically, and we feel very lucky to have fallen into this together. 

Ivo: I remember writing on facebook asking for people to play shoegaze with me, and Henry obviously replied instantly.  We went to Oberlin’s Gear Co-op to start sharing ideas, and I remember thinking he played so loudly that I would never be able to work with him.  Thankfully, I came to realize that that is basically half of Blankat’s M.O.: being so loud that the music becomes almost ambient.  

P.J.: Me, Abby, and Ivo had played around my freshman year in a band called Really Cute, which mostly sucked but we played a few songs that eventually became a part of the Blankat catalogue. After a hiatus when Abby was abroad, Ivo pulled us all together via a Facebook thread, and we all started hanging out all the time in a practice room in South Dorm, kicking around ideas and getting to know each other. 

If you could make a musical instrument out of an unconventional material what would it be?

Ivo:  Water.  I love the sonic properties of water.  Bubbles rule.

P.J.: I had a similar idea to Ivo. I’d like to slap something, but maybe something more viscous. Like yogurt. 

If someone hands you an aux cord in an uber what is the song you put on?

Abby: Robyn, or The Beach Boys.

Ivo: Dragonball Durag by Thundercat or MAMBO NO. 5!  (I don’t use Uber honestly).

Henry: Sometimes I throw on Rush Tom Sawyer because me and Reuben love it but everyone else not so much. 

P.J.: Right now I’d put on the new 100 Gecs remix with Charli, KKB, and Rico Nasty. It’s a real litmus test for whether or not you can hang. 

Reuben: Sandstorm by Darude. Next question please!!

What was the creative process like behind your most recent release, Blankat (Blanket*)?

Abby: Most of these songs are ones we have been playing and performing since we started as a band, practicing in a dorm and playing house shows at Oberlin. Our process generally tends to look like one of us with either a semi-completed song, or maybe just a progression and a melody, and then we bring it to the band and we all throw our ideas and parts in and it comes together. The first track, Monsters, was one of Ivo’s original demos on their Soundcloud, probably one of the first songs we ever actualized as a band. Fish Bike I wrote on a purple ukulele when I was abroad in Copenhagen, literally just the verse, chorus, and 4 chords. And then we made it a big grand ballad all together. It was like a beautiful dream, to have something very simple I had written, alone on the other side of the world, about some dumb guy I was hung up on back in Ohio, and to hear it become something with so much depth and energy, that’s a very cool feeling. 

Henry: Often as a band one person comes with a riff or snippet of a song then we play it over and over for a few hours until it’s a whole song. Fine Line was a song that we started when we had some down time in Minnesota on tour last August but then patched together the day before we hit the studio. Something that’s really important about our process is that we all like different genres of music and come to the table with totally different perspectives (and tunings). 

How does the music community and scene differ in Philly from New York?

Ivo:  I think DIY means two completely different things in this case:  In Philly, your typical DIY show goes on in somebody’s basement that has been set up to host bands; the house members are committed to maintaining a scene and support touring bands by drawing a crowd.  In NY, DIY really is a commitment to doing everything… yourself. The shows are held in small venue spaces (largely in Brooklyn), and you are very much in charge of your own fate- if you do not book and promote your show heavily, you don’t see a lot of faces at your show. 

Henry: The Philly scene is worlds different from New York. The cost of living in Philly is so much lower than New York so musicians are often able to have practice spaces in their homes where you can be as loud as you want and practice anytime. The music scene here is thriving. The city is much smaller but there are still so many bands that you could find a show pretty much any day of the week. It’s incredibly accessible to enter the scene here and start new projects. Also shout out to the Headroom where we recorded the most recent release, best studio on the East Coast. 

Please describe your favorite blanket.

Abby: Growing up, I had one of those NAP blankets from Brookstone on my bed. Very soft. 10/10 blanket. 

Henry: My cat has claimed a brown furry blanket and my roommates tuck him in with it. 

Reuben: I really like it when you lie down in the snow and it feels like a blanket and you get this extreme feeling of peace. But of course, then you have to go inside because this is dangerous if you fall asleep in this position.

Name a musician dead or alive that you would want to model your career after.

Ivo: Jim O’Rourke!  Mans is doing exactly what I want to be doing when I’m his age: chilling by himself on a mountain making bleeps and bloops while maintaining financial stability from his lucrative career as a rockstar. 

P.J.: This is a band, but I’m going with Blur. I’d love to have huge, nation-wide competition with another band -- to have those stakes. But at the end of the day to walk away winning. Oasis suck. 

Henry: Jeff Tweedy! The way Wilco blends weird sound textures over simple chord progressions is a big inspiration for me. Their rise to fame and the ability to change up their sound over 20 years is something I really admire. 

Reuben: I like R. Stevie Moore. Not that I’ve listened to him much, but like a classic British author he clearly gets that if you stylize your first name as an initial you have a more legitimate claim to influence.

Any final comments? (This is your electronic soapbox for one last answer.)

Ivo: Listen to our EP on Bandcamp! Blankat.bandcamp.com ! It will be streaming on all platforms April 10th :)  Also listen to our friends! Julia Julian, Awksymoron, Ben Special, Faucet, Net.