CASSETTE REVIEW: Blanche Blanche Blanche “Open Session Rock” (OSR Tapes)

http://osr-tapes.com/

http://osr-tapes.bandcamp.com/album/open-session-rock-osr3

            This is the cassette that I believe began OSR Tapes, as it is called “Open Session Rock”, which could be abbreviated as “OSR” and, yeah, I’m probably telling things which you either already knew or could very easily have figured out on your own.

            Blanche Blanche Blanche are so nice that their momma named them thrice.   I remember in the early ‘00’s, bands were having the double names, which means back then this could have just been simply “Blanche Blanche”, but I guess now bands are going for the triple.   In the year 2535, bands will be so long in name they will have to become “Blanche to the 15^th Power”. 

            The music of Blanche Blanche Blanche has a definite home recorded vibe to it, and I guess in some sense home can be a relative term so even if it was recorded in a studio, you know.   Wanting to abbreviate the band name Blanche Blanche Blanche makes me think about how in WCW Bam Bam Bigelow wanted to be known as “Triple B”, but Triple H put the legal stop to that.

            Qualities of this are lo-fi and it has that Daniel Johnston feel to it, but it’s not exactly like him which isn’t a bad thing either.  It also brings out the melody of another one of those names I always drop in EFS, but I feel like I haven’t stepped on him in a while so I’ll just put that out there.

            Synth blips come out with the Ben Kweller-like twee and I can really begin to hear Bryce Avery come out, if only vocally.   Perhaps the greatest aspect of this cassette- which makes it that much fitting for cassette- is that as polished as the harmonies could be in the vein of some sort of semi-major label release, it still maintains that d.i.y. portion that sticks to the roots and keeps it grounded.

            People will never probably understand how hard it is to accomplish something such as this sound because it doesn’t simply fall into that lo-fi category, yet if it becomes too refined it might just come off sounding like a crappy recording of a major label band (Imagine recording a live set by someone like My Morning Jacket on your iPhone)   Towing the line between the two spaces is perhaps the most difficult feat a band can tackle and Blanche Blanche Blanche has done it here.