The Peep Tempel frontman offers a profound window into his poetic brain.
When The Peep Tempel went on hiatus in 2017, Australian music lost a rock band that arrested listeners who famished for the offbeat and off-kilter. You couldn’t categorise The Peep Tempel such was their idiosyncrasy – the band melded everything from blazing punk to noise rock, art rock and beyond.
While The Peep Tempel lies asleep for now, the band’s frontman Blake Scott has stepped out with his own solo project. Over the last year or so, Scott has been finetuning his solo craft by playing intimate shows around the traps, and after releasing his debut single ‘Fever’ in August, Scott is set to unveil his debut album to the world.
To celebrate Niscitam – one of the year’s most anticipated local releases – we asked Scott about the things that inspired the record. From family members to instruments, authors and more, here are the five influences of Scott’s debut album, Niscitam.
Gerald Murnane
I became fascinated with Gerald Murnane while writing the album. I was reading his novel The Plains, listening to his spoken word album Words in Order and reading any articles of him I could find. I was dreaming of him regularly. I recall one of these dreams in track five of Niscitam, ‘The Plainsman’. Gerald was my closest companion (albeit imaginary) throughout the journey.
1983 Ibanez roadstar bass
I bought this incredible machine on Gumtree a few years back. I knew it would be a goodun when the seller voluntarily dropped the price because he’d altered it from its original state – in the way of a bright orange coat of paint. However hideous, this thing sounds incredible. Sometimes I’d just sit and bump away on one note. I wrote most of the bones for the album on this orange beauty. Nick Finch played it on the album.
‘Maggot Brain’ – Funkadelic
‘Maggot Brain’ features the finest fuzz guitar solo, ever. I love fuzz. Although not obvious, there is a lot of fuzzy, saturated guitar on the record. I played around with digital saturation (usually unpleasant) in pre production. For the nerds, just a guitar straight into the interface and slammed.
I ripped one of the greatest solos in the history of the world in the demo of ‘Bone Heavy’ and then could not reproduce it, it was so fuzzy that it transcended musical notation, therefore could only be transcribed in sentiment. The sentiment is there, the solo is not.
Vivian, my son
Although we’d not met at the time of writing, my son Vivian’s pending arrival had me coughing up all sorts of existential dread. Golden grist… parenthood, bringing home the bacon. Five stars.
Jacey Ashton, Niscitam drummer
It would be remiss of me not to mention Jacey. Having played with Steve Carter (The Peep Tempel drummer) for so many years, the bar was high. It was hard to break away from my subconscious. I’d write and play songs suited to Steve. It is cool to have that deep connection, though I didn’t want the record to sound like I’d replaced Steve and Stew with sub-standard replicas.
It needed to be different. When I heard Jacey play I was pumped! Jacey drums are like your favourite electronic kit, though obviously human and incredibly intuitive. Her openness and enthusiasm enabled me to be comfortable throughout the pursuit. Stunning human and musician. An absolute pleasure.
Blake Scott’s new album Niscitam is out on Friday October 9 via Wing Sing Records. Check it out on Bandcamp and keep up to date with Scott via his Facebook page.
Never miss a story. Sign up to Beat’s newsletter and you’ll be served fresh music, arts, food and culture stories three times a week.
