soudvsystem x Blemishes

On their debut album Ambivert, Houston-based project Blemishes is not like the others. The duo, consisting of Julienne Ceron and Jessie Huntington seamlessly blends influences and styles, outsmarting categorization. Fronted by writer/producer Ceron, Blemishes takes us on a 50-minute trip that ranges from panic-inducing rhythms to delicate instrumentation and back. Ambivert is the work of a band that sees the album format as an epic, rather than a set of short stories.

We asked Julienne Ceron to curate a playlist of tracks that influenced Ambivert. Read our Q&A with Ceron and scroll down to listen to the full playlist.

It took close to five years to make Ambivert. Can you talk about what sparked the beginning of that journey? How did you get into making music in the first place?

JC: I've always been deeply into artistic pursuits, even as a child. I remember distinctly being around seven years old playing the Tony Hawk games on the PS2, looking at the level design, and being like "I wanna do that!!"--not realizing at all how video games worked. All I saw were worlds I wanted to create.

Around middle school I started getting more into music, ripping YouTube songs onto my tablet, not realizing what albums were. It naturally grew into more off-the-wall music–starting from System of A Down, Linkin Park, Sublime, etc. I had an MP3 player before that, but with the stresses I had around that time, that's the expression I focused on.

The start of Ambivert was around 2018 or so. I had many ideas but was constantly frustrated that I didn't have any real way of recording things the way I desired. I was just getting into noise rock and no wave, so I was constantly obsessing over that sound. It was a deeply frustrating time. It wasn't until around 2020 that I finally had the time to develop a sound I enjoyed, and had a job to fund the things I wanted for it.

The album captures a transitional time, you’re going from high school into early adulthood. Did your musical tastes change during that period? If so, did that lead you to approach the album differently?

JC: My musical development up to this point is staggered. I would call myself extremely self-conscious about my musical output. There have been times when I have sounds in my head, and then a year or two later a band/artist has made similar sounds, forcing me to abandon the ideas entirely. I could still experiment with those sounds but I would immediately become disinterested when a band encompassed a certain area.

Ambivert was originally going to be a mix between Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation era and what Sprain did with Lamb As Effigy. Luckily, I got tired of making huge Branca and Chatham-influenced totalism and post-rock, I got super into the idea of electric sound and more acoustic sounds, listening to Ichiko Aoba and Nick Drake informing the more acoustic sounds. A lot of those influences went on the cutting room floor, due to me not enjoying my vocals enough. They're still there somewhere, I guess.

The opening song “Drive A Car” is sandwiched between two sections of noise rock. The lyrics reflect an accident that alters you–at the end asking “How does it feel to drive that car?” The idea is presented effortlessly and straightforwardly. What was the inspiration behind the song?

JC: The lyrics for “Drive A Car” were originally going to be much darker and more explicit. At the time, around 2019, I was knee-deep into JG Ballard's Crash. I was absolutely obsessing over that book, but I wasn't confident enough to include some of the gorier details. In the end, I sang only bits of the lyrics I wrote down. A lot of the lyrics ended up being taken out as well, going for a much more abstract idea than anything concrete for Ambivert. I was worried it'd be distateful for an album like this haha.

Ambivert is sonically complex–cutting between sharp musical passages (“Flood Driver” to “Butterfly Neck”) and smooth transitions (“Abivert” to “Going Home”). How did you approach the tracklisting?

JC: The tracklist for Ambivert was the first thing I thought of when composing the idea in my head! I usually create things in terms of cohesion first, rather than making a bulk of tracks and seeing how they flow. 

I see albums similar to movies; climaxes and scenes that lead into others. It's not that intelligent, but it's how I get around to it.

There are a lot of artists that are moving toward a post-genre direction and away from categorization. Do you consider Blemishes part of that movement? How do you approach experimentation as a songwriter?

JC: Music is made to be consumed by other people. With sites like RYM and AOTY, people tend to overexaggerate how much genre names matter. I feel that once you embrace the lack of boundaries that genre provides, the better you'll make music.

I don't mind being categorized down into any smaller subgenres, but it becomes extremely obvious when a company tries to force things like "webcore" and "weirdcore"--[genres] that are so obviously based on the visual aesthetics of marketing, rather than basing it off of actual genres with natural/organic history like DnB and jungle.

Another issue I see is when people start pigeonholing foreign music under "J-Rock" or "K-Pop," etc. I have an issue with that because rather than describing sounds and musical ideas, it is based entirely on location and how people look and speak. It's easy to use umbrella terms to dissociate the artist's artistic pursuits with stupid marketing language.

I want Blemishes to be listened to, and have people create their own conclusions for their consumption. :)

Blemishes Now/Soundvsystem forever

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Neu! - “Hallogallo”

Neu! has always been in the back of my mind, since I checked them out back around 2018. I originally passed them off as essential to the lore of experimental rock music but ultimately thought they were boring. That was until I listened to them within the context of Brain Eno’s approach to ambient music: "Ambient music is intended to induce calm and a space to think. Ambient music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting." This really made me reflect on the ultimate goal of Neu! as a group. By relistening to contemporary German bands of that time, I understood what they were going for!

“Drive A Car” was my take on “Hallogallo”; a similar motorik beat, inducing a similar atmosphere, and “loud, soft” dynamics, as well as influencing the rest of Ambivert’s krautrock sound.

ミドリ (Midori) - “メカ” (Meka)

Midori is an incredible example of modern punk, not restrictive of genre and style, just filled to the brim with anger, vicious expression, and boundaryless subject matter. Watch any live show of theirs—where Goto runs around the stage just screaming their heart out—and tell me that isn’t one of the most badass things ever.

I chose “Meka” specifically because I basically stole the rhythm of the track with “Flood Diver.” There are differences in interpretation, but it’s almost 1-to-1 in my head. Mix that with Elivs Costello-influenced organs, and you get the “Flood Diver” instrumental haha.

Prince - “Computer Blue (Hallway Speech Version)”

Prince is one of the best, point blank. Purple Rain might be considered “overrated” by diehard Prince fans, but I’ll always love that production. It’s so manic and over the top at points and divinely romantic in others. I specifically want to shout out the “Hallway Speech” version because I based the title track of Ambivert specifically on that in particular. I guess the krautrock and funky repetition made sense to incorporate—a jam session for half, and the other half taking influence from artists like The Microphones and the ethereal sounds of artists like Mum. Prince was a pretty talented guy in my book.

Butthole Surfers - “The O-Men”

Locust Abortion Technician is a huge influence on Ambivert in terms of the experimentation of sound collage and tape music, absolutely devastating guitar tone—only possible with pitch shifting—and absolutely ludicrous tracklisting format. It’s so fucked.

“The O-Men” is a huge influence on wanting to be as evil as possible without holding back on anything. You can hear that in the vocals sometimes.

Faust - Lauft... Heisst Das Es Lauft Oder Es Kommt Bald..Lauft

Faust IV Is one of the best albums I’ve ever heard, much like Locust Abortion Technician. It changed how I approach music. You listen to “Jennifer” and look at the year it was created and your whole perspective on shoegaze and progressive music is immediately re-evaluated.

“Lauft... Heisst Das Es Lauft Oder Es Kommt Bald..Lauft” was the basis of “Going Home” and a lot of the folkier sides of Ambivert. The main idea of Ambivert was always the dichotomy of electric and acoustic. That was the main concept from start to end, much like the dichotomy of noise and ambient music.

This Heat - “A New Kind of Water”

Deceit by This Heat is one of the only albums that consistently gives me pounds of anxiety. At the height of the Cold War, This Heat created Deceit because they felt like every single day could genuinely be their last.

“A New Kind Of Water” is one of the most nihilistic and anxiety-ridden songs I’ve ever heard. The fact a band can compress all of their fears and uncertainty into one song will always inspire me to be more open with my fears…I also ripped this song off in the main riff of “Torture Garden”’ lol.

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Ambivert is out now. The album can be streamed on Bandcamp and other platforms.