Of all the new musical discoveries I’ve made this year, one that has remained in heavy rotation is St. Petersburg’s Blankenberge, whom I tried to properly celebrate back in June. They actually weren’t entirely new to me as their 2017 debut Radiogaze was brought to my attention by some genre year-end lists. As I recall, I liked it okay but didn’t necessarily feel like it particularly distinguished itself from the other new-gaze acts around at the time. That’s also one of the reasons that their two follow-ups – 2019’s More and 2021’s Everything – have impressed me so much; they’ve gotten so much better so quickly.
Their video presence over those last couple records hasn’t been the best, however, so I am still appreciative of this live session recorded at Melody Studio, a converted Lutheran church in their adopted hometown. In it, they perform the entirety of Radiogaze live just a few months after it was released. Dig the natural reverb, yo.
While being a Russian artist is obviously complicated these days, the band posted a dispatch on Instagram earlier this year declaring album number four was underway in Serbia, so thank goodness for that.
