Born out of coming-of-age angst, existential reflections, and intimate inner reckonings with his own purpose and place in the world, Max Blansjaar’s debut album ‘False Comforts’ is a dramatic, spirited, and achingly human record filled with answerless questions – and that’s more than enough.
Stream: ‘False Comforts’ – Max Blansjaar
I don’t want to make music that’s productive; I don’t set out to try and resolve anything. This isn’t therapy.
If Max Blansjaar’s debut album answers some deeper questions you’ve been harboring about life, existence, and the universe, that’s great!
But it doesn’t have to; even the artist himself recognizes that sometimes, a song is just a song: A moment of musical self-expression, words put to sounds, organized noise. Human connection mixed with entertainment.
Yet even if such a description is true for some records – and it certainly is – it’s a disservice to Blansjaar and his first LP. Born out of coming-of-age angst, existential reflections, and intimate inner reckonings with his own purpose and place in the world, False Comforts is a dramatic, spirited, and achingly human record filled with answerless questions. The Oxford-based singer/songwriter reminds us that we’re not alone in our daily struggles through a catchy collection of sonically and emotionally charged songs whose heat, passion, and radiant energy prove as irresistible as they are soothing.
And that’s more than enough for Max Blansjaar’s so-called “false comforts” to make a real impact.
One moment on the eyes,
a lifetime on the frontal lobe, there’s
So many old mistakes
I can’t be bothered to atone for
So many victims of my innocence
that never will come back
For each I scratch a prayer
with care into the bathroom mirror
And now my face looks like
I spent the night with Freddie Krueger
Well even he would run a mile
from the morning I’ve just had
There’s another eyesore coming up ahead
There’s another spaceship coming in to land
There’s another place we tried to hide in where
The walls are caving in
– “Burning In Our Name,” Max Blansjaar
Atwood Magazine is proud to be premiering False Comforts, Max Blansjaar’s warm, whimsical, wondrous, and weary debut album (out June 21, 2024 via Beanie Tapes). Produced by Katie Von Schleicher and Nate Mendelsohn, Blansjaar’s first full-length record is a long-awaited return for the 21-year-old English (by way of Amsterdam) indie pop artist; his first two EPs (2018’s Spit It Out! and 2019’s Fantasy Living) are more than a whole Brexit and pandemic old, and while neither feels like a distant dream just yet, their music is of a different time and place; one in which Blansjaar, then a teenager, wasn’t necessarily questioning every single action and reaction, and wasn’t labeling himself a “disturbance” or a “bad dream.”
In comparison, False Comforts is unapologetically and undeniably of the here and now. Kaleidoscopic and anchorless, weightless and yet definitely heavy, Blansjaar’s new LP is an intimate, expansive soundtrack to one soul’s coming-of-age journey into an uncertain world.
“I started writing the first False Comforts songs in early 2020,” Blansjaar tells Atwood Magazine. “It felt like a lot of talk happening around me was generational — the news covered generational challenges, my friends professed generational anxieties over Web 2.0, table service, and global crises they did not cause, I gave in and read Spotify’s apocalyptic ‘Who is Gen Z, Really?’ report in the search for self-knowledge — yet I struggled to ever identify with that category, which always struck me as more of a buzzphrase than as a genuine connection.”
“At the same time, I was at the threshold of what was, for me, a new world: Just finishing school, between two states of being, all the freedom in the universe suddenly feeling somehow like less freedom that I’d ever had before. I felt the need to assert myself, to make music that reflected where I actually fit into the world of rituals and allegiances that was unfolding around me. Or, at least, that reflected the powerlessness of not knowing my place.”
For Blansjaar, acceptance proved a major creative breakthrough.
“This is the age of hurdles; welcome to the age of hurdles,” he even sings at once point, embracing the unknown like the brother he can’t live with or without. Rather than deny what he can’t control, Blansjaar uses his music as a vessel to understand (and critique) life for what it is presently – even if that means he must ultimately “resolve against love” (as he does in “Song Against Love”).
“I challenged myself to get straightforward,” he explains. “Stop chasing complexity and Follow Your Nose! Amongst others I owe a debt of gratitude to The Velvet Underground and to Elephant 6 for teaching me the power of the harmonically simple, to Beck and to Cate Le Bon for lyrical inspiration, and to a couple of experimental music groups I started playing with that got me to be bolder in my choice of sounds.”
By the time Blanjaar found himself at Katie Von Schleicher’s home studio in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, he was ready to unleash everything that had been building up within him. “It all made sense, finally, partway through our two weeks of recording the album,” he recalls. “I came across Brad Liening’s poetry collection ‘Are You There, God? It’s Me, Whitney Houston’ at a bookshop in Dumbo one day (one of the last copies out there, he’s since told me), and when I opened it, there was the line:
Some explanations
last forever and never
answer a thing
“Yahtzee! There doesn’t always have to be a solution, or a resolution; it can be rewarding, even necessary, to linger in a snapshot of a feeling for a while. In that sense, I knew these songs would be False Comforts. 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.”
These songs are ‘False Comforts’ in that they just sit with particular states or feelings without resolving them. They’re little ornaments, useless.
This writer candidly disagrees with the premise that a false comfort can’t bring about real change, but I respect the message, and the emotion, behind these songs.
As an album, False Comforts is a world – or a series of worlds – unto itself. From the groovy opening moments of “Saturnia” and the gentle, smile-inducing drama of “Anna Madonna” to the vulnerable outpourings of “Red Tiger,” the feverish rush of “Life on Earth,” and the poetic, relentless churn of album closer “I Will Not Be Forgiven,” Blansjaar strives to make peace with (or at least, surrender himself to) life’s chaos, instability, imbalance, and lack of resolve.
The finale’s lyrics are particularly telling, as he describes a predilection for imperfect spaces with thorns, holes, and sharp edges over a perfect, utopian version of heaven that’s “clean and pure and lifeless“: He’s finding his footing in the world’s imperfection, and would rather work to right wrongs than white-wash them. “All people are a mess crying out to be abandoned, the candle’s burning us to death,” he roars over intentionally abrasive overdrive. “I’m coming to the end of my generation… I will go where thistles grow, and worms live in the apples, and I will not go to heaven.”
Again, the point here was never to solve the world’s problems – but in highlighting them, and singing about his own physical and emotional friction, inner turmoil, and the like, Max Blansjaar offers a window through which all can connect – both to a fellow human, and to his familiar, relatable frame of reference.
Does it ever comfort you
When the days fade into dark
That everybody’s got a heart of gold
And they all trade it for plastic in the end
– “On Beyond Eden,” Max Blansjaar
“Songs don’t really do anything, and for me that’s kind of the point,” he confides. “I don’t want to make music that’s productive; I don’t set out to try and resolve anything. This isn’t therapy. I think some of my favourite music existing in the sort of broadly confessional, indie space I operate in is great precisely because it’s confusing, or because it captures some sense of confusion, it just poses questions and isn’t really interested in answering them.”
Still, False Comforts is a provocative record, and one that forces its listeners to take a few steps back and see their world anew through its author’s fresh perspective.
“I hope people find something in it that makes them think in a different way,” Blansjaar shares. “If people relate to my music, that’s really cool, and I’m really glad, but I think it’d be even cooler if they don’t. Because that’s how the way we see ourselves becomes less stable, I guess, and that’s when we strike gold.”
A sweet surrender wrapped in uncompromising rebellion, False Comforts is fever dream worthy of repeat listens –
each one promising to unlock another layer of thought and sound. This might be one of the first times a record has found catharsis in a lack thereof, and that in itself makes this album very special. Stream Max Blansjaar’s debut LP exclusively on Atwood Magazine, and dive even deeper into his music and artistry in our interview below!
Fans in the UK can catch Max Blansjaar on tour throughout this June and July – find tickets and more information here!
I will not be forgiven
For all my sins, I’m living
I have died a thousand times
and slept in my disguises
And I will not be forgiven
No one will help the children
They’re cold and tired and youthless
The world is spinning pirouettes
for crowds all throwing roses
And no one will help the children
All admiration is theft
All people are a mess
crying out to be abandoned
The candle’s burning us to death
I’m coming to the end of my generation
– “I Will Not Be Forgiven,” Max Blansjaar
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:: stream/purchase False Comforts here ::
:: connect with Max Blansjaar here ::
Stream: ‘False Comforts’ – Max Blansjaar
A CONVERSATION WITH MAX BLANSJAAR
Atwood Magazine: Max, can you share a little about the story behind this record?
Max Blansjaar: I wrote these songs mostly between 2019 and 2022. I was just coming out of school, just starting university, and had this weird sense of being at a threshold — I wanted to try and capture some of the uncertainty of that period, of not knowing what’s around the corner, of being thrust into a world you don’t yet really understand. There seemed to be a lot of discourse around generational identities, these collective ways of experiencing the world that are basically calcified, and I didn’t trust it. The process of growing up surely must be more complicated than having a pre-determined place in the world and finding it, right? So the album is part documentation of all these feelings, part resistance to them, and part concession to them, in places.
What was your vision going into this record? Did that change over the course of recording this?
Max Blansjaar: I had fairly detailed demo versions of all the songs, and I thought I knew pretty much how they were going to sound. Sort of gritty, lo-fi, pretty nineties indie type thing. But part of the reason I wanted to work with Katie von Schleicher and Nate Mendelsohn, instead of producing the album myself, is that I knew they would take the songs in directions I could never have imagined. That was the whole point, I wanted to venture into my blind spots a little bit. So some of the songs changed beyond recognition — we really followed our noses. It was exciting.
Why the title “False Comforts”?
Max Blansjaar: It’s to describe what the songs are doing, I think. Or rather, not doing. Like, songs don’t really do anything, and for me that’s kind of the point. I don’t want to make music that’s productive; I don’t set out to try and resolve anything. This isn’t therapy. I think some of my favourite music existing in the sort of broadly confessional, indie space I operate in is great precisely because it’s confusing, or because it captures some sense of confusion, it just poses questions and isn’t really interested in answering them. So anyway, that’s kind of what I’m getting at with the title. These songs are False Comforts in that they just sit with particular states or feelings without resolving them. They’re little ornaments, useless.
How do you feel False Comforts introduces you and captures your artistry?
Max Blansjaar: There’s hints of what I’ve been doing for a while with my earlier self-produced stuff, and in some ways it feels like the culmination of that — the kind of lo-fi indie thing. But the production on this album is actually not that lo-fi, certainly not compared to what I was doing before. I think it lets my songwriting pop a bit more, makes it sound a little deeper and more diverse, which is cool. There’s a lot of different influences that I’ve picked up and dropped again. It’s weird, because whenever you record a set of songs, you think they all sound so different that it’s hard to imagine they’re on the same album, but then other people hear them and they can hardly tell them apart because they think they sound so similar. I feel like that’s probably my situation now — to me False Comforts feels like a kind of wacky assortment of songs, but maybe that’s just because I’m too close to them. Or maybe it’s actually just incoherent, ha.
Do you have any definitive favorites or personal highlights off this record?
Max Blansjaar: It varies a lot. These songs were written a while ago — in some ways they’re snapshots of times that I don’t really know anymore. So some of them have stayed more resonant with me personally than others, and some of them have become more resonant in different ways than before.
I’m proud of “Anna Madonna” as a song, I think it’s really neat conceptually and I think we executed it super well on record. Some of the big instrumental outros on the album are really exciting to me, just because I’ve always wanted to do them, and I like to pretend I’m less of a pop musician than I am. I’m thinking of “Like a Bad Dream” and “Pieces of the Sun” particularly. Distorted freak-outs, and saxophone.
Likewise, do you have any favorite lyrics in these songs?
Max Blansjaar: I definitely prefer a cryptic lyric over a blunt one. Generally they offer more ways in. Like, show don’t tell, but actually also don’t show, you know? Whenever I sing, “Welcome to the age of hurdles, I’m a bird girl” on “Song Against Love,” I’m like, ‘Wow, so true.’ Another favourite is I woke at 2:15 / the nightmare was a horse on “Saturnia,” partly because of the pun. Nightmare, horse…I also like how it happens over this weird pseudo-country slide guitar so it’s kind of like the horse is present. Texturally. Whatever.
What do you hope listeners take away from False Comforts? What have you taken away from creating it and now putting it out?
Max Blansjaar: It’s been really crazy working on a single project for this long. I’ve never done anything like it before. The whole process, start to finish, it’s been about two years; and that’s not even including the time of writing the actual songs, which was even longer ago. I need to keep telling myself that what feels like the final day for me, release day, is day one of the album for everyone else. So I’ve definitely become more patient because of all this, and more perseverant, too. It’s also been really good for me to talk to so many people about the album, like you guys, because it makes me actually think about and articulate what I’m doing in a way I maybe haven’t done enough before. So thanks for that.
It’s a really rewarding feeling to finally get to release False Comforts now. I guess I just hope people like it. And I hope people find something in it that makes them think in a different way. If people relate to my music, that’s really cool, and I’m really glad, but I think it’d be even cooler if they don’t. Because that’s how the way we see ourselves becomes less stable, I guess, and that’s when we strike gold.
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:: stream/purchase False Comforts here ::
:: connect with Max Blansjaar here ::
Stream: ‘False Comforts’ – Max Blansjaar
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