After releasing a couple of laptop-recorded EPs with Beanie Tapes to acclaim in the local scene, Amsterdam-born, Oxford-based artist Max Blansjaar wanted to broaden his horizons for his debut full-length. So when then opportunity to work with Katie Von Schleicher presented itself, Blansjaar jumped at the chance, travelling to New York to have Von Schleicher and Market’s Nate Mendelsohn produce the album and lift his complex demos towards their full indie pop potential.
Part of the process involved Max Blansjaar learning the power of authenticity and restraint. “I challenged myself to get straightforward,” as he explains. “Stop chasing complexity and Follow Your Nose!” The album False Comforts feels very much a product of this newfound understanding. The sound of an artist reacting to the fundamental uncertainty of the contemporary moment—be it personally, with Blansjaar reaching the age between school and adulthood, or globally with everything the 2020s have brought—by deciding against any attempt to chase trends or fit into brackets and instead work from the gut.
A line from Brad Liening’s poetry collection Are You There, God? It’s Me, Whitney Houston made an impact. “some explanations / last forever and never / answer a thing.” False Comforts takes such wisdom to heart, finding not frustration in uncertainty or incompleteness, but rather something like freedom. “I knew these songs would be false comforts,” as Blansjaar continues. “They wouldn’t fix anything, they wouldn’t give me answers, they wouldn’t help, they were pointless, unproductive hideouts, explanations lasting forever. And I found a strange comfort in them for that. Maybe someone else will, too.”
Lead single ‘Anna Madonna’ welcomes the audience into such an endeavour. A song which acknowledges the hurtful nature of the world and the resulting temptation to react with anger or bitterness. Yet delivered with a playful rhythm and gentle indie pop charm, it becomes the antithesis to such moods. A message of empathy and sincerity persisting in spite of the hopeless conditions which birthed it.
Anna Madonna, don’t shut the door on me
Don’t block all your windows, so nobody knows you’re here
I know you’re sick of the political climate
And every day you fight a hopeless war
I know you think your girlfriend hates you in secret
But don’t take it out on me
It’s nothing to do with me
