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Spit It Out!

by Max Blansjaar

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. Paying supporters also get unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app.
    Purchasable with gift card

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  • Cassette + Digital Album

    A sunny edition in lemon yellow and hot pink, featuring an updated track list that includes the woozy summer anthem “Life’s Too Easy”. The download for this edition is the new 6-track version, not available for download anywhere else!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Spit It Out! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 3 days
    edition of 50 

      £5 GBP or more 

     

  • Limited Edition Cassette (2nd pressing)
    Cassette + Digital Album

    Due to popular demand, a second run of Spit It Out! cassettes. The colours have changed, but the music is the same catchy lo-fi punk-pop that inspired people to buy the entire first run in a single day. Don’t miss out!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Spit It Out! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • Limited Edition Cassette
    Cassette + Digital Album

    A tapetastic tape cassette containing TWO COPIES of the EP (one on each side) in a lovingly designed fold-out multi-panel J-card sleeve complete with lyrics to all the songs. Only 30 copies available!

    Includes unlimited streaming of Spit It Out! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
2.
3.
Jetski 03:08
4.
Stage 1 03:35
5.
Marble Arch 04:06

about

Max Blansjaar’s debut EP Spit it Out! is a riotous mix of fuzzy guitars, energetic beats and unexpected samples that feels fresh and exciting. This handful of raw, lo-fi tracks were recorded and mixed in the music room at school during his lunch breaks and free periods. At fifteen years old, Max isn’t hanging around: there are songs to write and you can tell he’s loving every minute of it. Max has spent the last ten years playing classical piano but after picking up the guitar about a year ago he started creating music that has a much more DIY, experimental edge; think Darwin Deez, tUnE-yArDs or Franz Ferdinand rather than Mozart or Handel.

In “Spit It Out!” Max is really embodying the indie-punk ethic; this isn’t background music, he wants his listeners to feel something. His songs grab our attention and remind us that we are all just trying to work things out and make sense of everything. Max’s songs are a spirited expression of those feelings that don’t make sense; without being self-conscious, he’s spitting out what he wants to say and we are listening.

“You’re Always On My Mind” conveys the conflicting feelings you get from doing what you want to do rather than what you’re supposed to. Max plays with the concepts of freedom and carelessness. Feeling like you should be acting all anarchic and unlawful but having the conscience to know that’s not always a good thing, especially when you really cross the line. With its weird chord progressions, random sound effects and echoey vocals it’s reminiscent of the raw recordings of late eighties indie bands or some of post-Blur Graham Coxon.

You can hear the teenage angst in Max’s Molkoesque voice in “Standardized Collision”. It’s a bigger sounding song, it feels darker, a little futuristic and dystopian. Max takes us on a grim ride where opposites collide and cause chaos. That compulsion to someone or something that is bigger and way more dangerous than you is never going to end well, especially when there’s a “psychopathic brain” to get inside!

“Jetski’s” light, poppy sound belies the angst of his words – “do you ever get that feeling that you’re dying?” and “we will laugh at the way / all the good things go away” chirps Max alongside a jaunty Casio keyboard. Does anything make sense when your heart is in your mouth and confusion sends you falling?

When “Stage 1” opens with a digital drum beat and catchy, grungey guitars you’re immediately transported to those lazy teenage days when “the clock struck midday, but you stayed in bed” and “life’s just so mundane”.

The tempo slows with the loungey, mellow closing track “Marble Arch”. The soothing melody lets you sink into the song as Max’s echoey vocals sing out smooth but bittersweet lyrics. It’s a contrast to the other more upbeat tracks and rounds off Max’s remarkable and very true début EP.

—Rachel Poulton

credits

released October 13, 2018

Written, performed and recorded by Max Blansjaar at Europa School UK

Mixed and mastered by Richard Aitken at Nimrod Sound

All artwork by Léa Morales-Chanard

Thanks and love to all those working with/at Beanie Tapes, in particular Ben, Julia and Léa; all at Matrix Music School and Arts Centre; all at Europa School UK; the Fahls; Mandy Morris; and everyone else, friends and family, who made this EP possible.

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about

Max Blansjaar Oxford, UK

Born in Amsterdam, raised in Oxford. Signed to Beanie Tapes. Reasonably clean.

Début album “False Comforts” coming soon. June 2024.

“Deadpan, lo-fi pop tunes delivered with buzzsaw accuracy” – Clash Magazine

“Lo-fi wonder... a warming take on indie-pop” – Born Music
... more

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