Blank Instrument has made a song for the moments when everything feels a little too much. The project of Australian indie folk/country artist Kim Franklin has her turning her personal experiences into songs that feel warm, open and lived-in.
This second single, ‘Green and Blue’, from forthcoming debut album ‘Jumping at Ghosts’, was written during a visit to Byron Bay in the months after the passing of Franklin’s close friend Julie. The timing carried its own weight, coinciding with what would have been Julie’s birthday.
Although its presence is felt, the song resists becoming all about loss and instead looks outward. Piano leads the arrangement before drums, organ, swelling synths and acoustic and electric guitars gradually fill the space around Franklin’s vocal. Its fuller moments never overwhelm the song’s reflective character, with the production retaining the sense of open air that inspired it.
Byron Bay’s coastline becomes more than scenery. Watching surfers below a cliff, suspended in the water and waiting for the next wave, gave Franklin the image at the centre of the song: “waiting in the blue.” It becomes a simple metaphor for resisting the urge to force whatever comes next.
“Whenever I feel worried or overwhelmed, my instinct is to literally run for the hills (the bush)… [In Byron] I rounded the corner and looked down from the cliff to see all these surfers just ‘waiting in the blue’. While working on this album, I feel like it was trying to teach me something about being in the present moment, not rushing to the end and allowing the process to unfold.”
That relationship between grief and creativity also runs deeper through ‘Jumping at Ghosts’. Before her passing in 2023, Julie left Franklin money with the encouragement to pursue her dreams, a gift that ultimately helped fund the making of the album.
Knowing that history gives ‘Green and Blue’ another layer, but Franklin doesn’t let it overpower the song. There is sadness here, certainly, yet the track is ultimately concerned with returning to yourself. Rather than searching for resolution, Blank Instrument finds something more useful in the pause between waves.
https://blankinstrument.com
