[Cover photo credit to Bella White]
Victoria, British Columbia experimental Art-Rocker outfit Pastel Blank have returned with new single “Terracotta Sunroom,” which gives us a glimpse of their debut record, due later this year.
Discussing the track, guitarist/vocalist Angus Watt says:
I was reading a lot of Flannery O’Connor when I wrote ‘Terracotta Sunroom’, intrigued by her rendering of good country people wrestling with religious fanaticism, reproachable sins, and murky morality, all bubbling up to the surface through barely perceptible gestures. The novel ‘Wise Blood’ in particular was a big inspiration. When I was writing the lyrics, I thought of Hazel Motes and his tragic search for authentic belief in a world of religious hucksters.

Having started to release singles just before the onset of the pandemic, Pastel Blank saw regional success from their live performances and made a move to up their production style from the bedroom recordings they initially put online. This led to the group’s collaboration with local music multi-hyphenate David Parry, known for producing Loving and Jons and Alice Phoebe Lou. Together with Parry, Pastel Blank’s forthcoming album has developed into “an eclectic jumble of wonderfully wonky guitar-tones, picturesque storytelling, and an altogether clockwork of uncanny grooves that’ll make you shake it like you didn’t know you could”.