'Animated Violence Mild' was written throughout 2018, at Power’s studio just outside Edinburgh. These eight tracks are the diary of a year of work steeped in honing craft, self-discovery, and grief - the latter of which reared its head at the final hurdle of producing this record and created a whole separate narrative: grief, both for what Power has lost personally, but also in a global sense, for what we as a species have lost and handed over to our blood-sucking counterpart, consumerism, only to be ravaged by it.
Speaking on the record, Power offers the following statement: “In this post-industrial, post-enlightenment religion of ourselves, we have manifested a serpent of consumerism which now coils back upon us. It seduces us with our own bait as we betray the better instincts of our nature and the future of our own world. We throw ourselves out of our own garden. We poison ourselves to the edges of an endless sleep.
I believe that many of us have willfully allowed our survival instinct to become engulfed by the snake we birthed. Animated — brought to life by humankind. Violent — insurmountable and wild beyond our control. Mild — delicious."
Power has been making music under the Blanck Mass moniker since 2010. In 2012, ”Sundowner” – the second track from the self-titled Blanck Mass debut – soundtracked the London Olympics Opening Ceremony. The song was chosen by Underworld’s Rick Smith and performed by London’s Symphony Orchestra to 900 million people worldwide. Since then, Power has released two albums, 2015's 'Dumb Flesh' and 2017's 'World Eater', on Sacred Bones.
'Animated Violence Mild' is Power's fourth full-length as Blanck Mass, and having worked extensively throughout his musical life with dramatics, narrative, and ‘melody against all odds’, these tracks are the most direct and honest yet.
