Rising Arp: This Is Blush, The Glowing Alt-Rock Quartet That Pack Grace In Their Grit

This is the incandescent rise of Blush (Credit: Nicholas Kent Tann)

There’s nothing shy about this advent that’s fresh out of the oven. Making their presence felt in the scene in Blush, a new alt-rock quartet with names and faces that local devotees would be accustomed to. Fronted by Soffi Peters who formed ripples in the mid-2010s with her electronic project sofklo, Blush is also made up of equally gifted members, Daniel Lim from hauste, as well as Zhang Bo and Daniel Pei from Cosmic Child. This like-minded union follows the recurring, serendipitous trend of musical groups sharing bandmates, proof of the tight-knit (some might say, small) nature of the local community. But putting aside former pursuits, these are simply peers coming together to jam their hearts out, and it shows non-conservatively in their sound.

Blush gives a classic sound another breath of life (Credit: Nicholas Kent Tann)

Melding their individual musicalities as Blush, the outfit fires a youth-charged soundtrack set against the imagery of grainy VSCO filters and sunset lens flares. Their debut single, “Best Friend”, paints this context with snug summertime riffs, coats of dreamy fuzz and climatic distortion, and feathery vocals that slice through the corpus of noise. In particular, it’s this contrast between Peters’ lackadaisical, breathy delivery and her comrades’ accompanying barrage – a crusty density that echoes the intensity of bands like Yuck and My Bloody Valentine – that gives Blush an upper hand. It’s a fine-tuned balancing act that they maintain artfully, releasing a homogeneous mix of grace-meets-grit.

Blush has already begun to turn heads with a debut performance at the recent Baybeats Festival, where they played for live audiences in full-band and stripped-down formats. They revealed unreleased numbers including the lithe yet languorous “Come Clean” that finds harmony in its toothy guitar collisions, and the blackhole-inducing “Suck” that crawls with its slow, cacophonous march; you can watch a recording of their live performance at the 1:06:00 mark. Blush is set to release their debut EP sometime soon, so you can expect their hype to stay on its course. This is a band that’s just starting to turn on its glow.

Update: Their self-titled debut EP is out now on Spotify.