Blank Realm

Blank Realm emerged from Brisbane amid Australia’s expanding underground rock movement throughout the 2000s and 2010s. The group comprises siblings Daniel, Luke, and Sarah Spencer together with their “spiritual brother” Luke Walsh. While drawing on standard indie-rock reference points such as Sonic Youth, the quartet also folded the hypnotic repetition of Can and Amon Düül into their expansive, flowing compositions. Music began appearing in 2007 with the successive albums Blight Monument, You Don’t Know the Devil Til You’ve Seen Him in a Flower, and Free Time. A steady succession of further recordings followed on Not Not Fun, Digitalis, and Music Your Mind Will Love You. Bedroom Suck issued Deja What? in 2010 and followed it with Go Easy in 2012; Fire Records reissued the latter title in May 2013. Early 2014 brought Grassed Inn, whose tighter arrangements reflected the influence of Echo & the Bunnymen, Big Star, and the Zombies. Twelve months afterward the band delivered Illegals in Heaven, recorded and produced by Room 40 founder Lawrence English and representing Blank Realm’s first studio-recorded album.