With a near-unbelievable backstory, newcomer duo Still Blank prove there’s depth to their idiosyncrasy with their effortless debut album.

Two artistic spirits from opposite sides of the globe combining seamlessly: welcome to Still Blank. Ben from Manchester connected with Jordy from the Hawaiian island of Kauai, in a Liverpudlian slice of luck and instinctively began recording music together. 

The music – delivered in the form of a self-titled debut album – is a sum of its parts. Take a Mancunian guitarist indebted to John Squire and Bernard Sumner and match it with a singer and multi-instrumentalist who flourishes in a raw and experimental environment. The end result is gritty and emotive, grungy and cinematic; a compelling and calculated collaborative creative force that is unique and captivating. 

Delving into the making and meaning, Jordy reveals all to Wonderland…

Listen to the album…

Read the track-by-track breakdown…

“What About Jane“

“What About Jane” was one of the first songs that Ben & I wrote with Joel. Nearly everyday, we’d have some sort of therapy session with the three of us. To keep inspiration flowing, we taped up loads of pictures from a mood board I’d made on the walls. There were a fair few of Jane Birkin, which led us to a conversation about her life and what we thought she was as a person was like. She was this feminine icon that was something of an enigma, but I found an interview online where she talked about her perception of herself. Even though she was portrayed as “perfect” and “confident”, she didn’t view herself that way at all. This led us to a conversation about ourselves; about how we can be raised in different ways to fit into certain moulds, and how the person we sometimes present to others isn’t always the real us. “What About Jane” is a deep self-reflection of how we acknowledge who the real “Jane” is within all of us, rather than the one others expect us to be. 

Ain’t Quite Right

Ben & I wrote “Ain’t quite right” around Christmastime last year at his parents’ house as a six-minute motorik demo full of a lot of screeching feedback and a driving drum beat. Maybe it was the sweet smell of hot cocoa or the white snow outside that inspired such a dark & jarring song. I came up with the initial/underlying guitar riff that we then built upon, and Ben had the words “ain’t quite right” lingering in his head, which we used to tell a dysfunctional story about toxic, smothering love. We were listening to a lot of Sonic Youth and PJ Harvey at the time, which shines through as clear inspirations behind the writing. When bringing it into the studio, there were some parts of the demo we didn’t want to lose, but we hadn’t realised that the tuning of the demo was in-between keys, so we had to reset the tuner to a hertz that sat somewhere between E & E#. 

“Dead & Gone“

In mid-November of last year, Joel took us to his family’s cabin in rural Wales for a week to write. Fuelled by rainy walks among sheep, whiskey, fires, and the silence of the countryside, “Dead & Gone” was one of the songs we wrote while there. Ben started strumming a few chords on an acoustic & I pulled an old poem out of my notes, which became the lyrics for this track. We added a Casio organ & kept it all pretty sparse. This song is the simplest one on the record and sort of wrote itself in a matter of minutes, but sometimes there’s no need to overcomplicate things. I recorded quick scratch vocals for the demo that night in the cabin, but after returning to it in the studio a couple of weeks later, we ended up keeping the original demo vocals, as there was an in-the-moment feeling that I couldn’t recreate. 

“Get Over It”

We wrote “Get Over It” after thinking we’d already finished the record, but wanted to see if we could conjure up a bonus track, though it ended up becoming a permanent track on the album.

Inspired by a friend in the music industry who got caught in the middle of some men & their egos, and was told to “get over it” in response to the situation. It’s something that most women have to deal with in all industries and areas of life; this sense that you have to work so hard to prove yourself because the phrase “like a girl” is often viewed as a weakness, even though we are the ones who give life to this earth. The lyric “Mary cover it up, but she’s covered in blood, watch you wriggle and squirm” comes directly from the thought of periods and birth to many men, asking us to cover up the most natural parts of being a woman. 

“Sundown Dialogue“

“Sundown Dialogue” was the second song Ben & I ever wrote together in Liverpool. One day, Ben picked up my warped classical guitar and started playing the initial riff. It was the prettiest thing I’d heard on that half-broken guitar. 

I’d been living in Liverpool for nearly 3 years and as much as I loved the people around, the UK weather and being so far away from home was really hard on me. Whenever the sun would come out, I’d go to my favorite graveyard park with a journal and write. The lyrics to “Sundown Dialogue” are my love letter to the Liverpool sun that rarely shows its face. 

We used most stems from the demo on the recorded track, and for that reason it sits in-between keys as well, as we forgot to tune the guitar before recording:)) 

“Same Sun“

“Same Sun” was born from a jam one night in the studio. We’d had Liam Hutton, an amazing drummer and human, over that day putting some drums on a few tracks and found ourselves there in the after hours forming a makeshift band. Ben was on baritone, myself and Joel on electric guitars, and Liam was on drums. We recorded the whole thing, aside from vocals, in one take, and then recorded the vocals by shouting from opposite sides of the room into one mic in the middle of the floor. Ben was inside a closet at the time. The lyrics were inspired by an old poem of mine called ‘The Sky Is the Same on the Other Side’. It’s about the juxtaposition of our realities in this strange world; how so much suffering and prosperity can co-exist right next to each other, underneath the same sun. 

“Vacancy“

This was another early track that Ben & I wrote together. I remember writing it when we’d gone through a phase of playing a lot of chess (we are both awful). In between games, he must have picked up a guitar and started picking the first few chords of the main acoustic part, but then quickly put it down to go do something else. There was something I instantly loved about the feel of it, so I convinced him to play it again. We recorded a take of guitar take and the next day I sat outside with a notebook and wrote a load of nonsense. I still don’t entirely know where the words came from, but the process was a stream of consciousness. 

“Denial“

I went through a period of having a lot of vivid, strange dreams and started writing them down. The story in “Denial” came from one of those dreams. I love that a lot of people have different interpretations of the lyrics, unique meanings for metaphors. That’s what makes it interesting in my opinion. It’s one of the more folky-sounding tunes on the record, written in a strange tuning that Ben made up on the spot. We created the weird reverb solo by flicking through about 30 takes of this pedal that had a mind of its own, slowly picking out melodies we liked the sound of and piecing together the riff like a jigsaw puzzle. 

“Cut Slack“

We wrote “Cut Slack” in a matter of a couple of hours. It was one of those songs that wrote itself in a way. Both Ben & I are empaths and people pleasers, which can eat up your insides if you let it. It was written right after a challenging phone call from a good friend and the guilt of potentially disappointing others. It’s a reminder to cut ourselves some slack, as we can all be our own harshest critics. 

“Rainman“

This was the very first song that Ben & I ever wrote together, after staying inside instead of going to a Halloween party we were planning on. Instead, we got a bottle of wine and made “Rainman” by messing around in an open tuning with a bottle neck as a slide. Ben was listening to a lot of the Durutti Column at the time and was enjoying creating lush soundscapes. The lyrics are a nostalgic tantrum of nights spent lying under the stars at night, finding comfort in the notion of being but a tiny speck in the universe. Nothing matters, yet everything does.