Across her 11-track debut album ‘Jumping At Ghosts’, Boorloo/Perth singer-songwriter Kim Franklin, under the moniker Blank Instrument, moves through heartbreak, intrusive thoughts, uncertainty, love and self-worth with a warmth that gradually turns the record into something larger than a collection of difficult memories. Folk, soul, blues and piano-led songwriting shift around one another as she searches for ways to keep living alongside everything that cannot be changed.
The album was made possible through the generosity of her late friend Julie, giving a record that was never originally intended to exist an emotional significance before its first note.
Opening trio ‘Brand New’, ‘Know Nothing’ and ‘Green and Blue’ establish its emotional vocabulary of renewal, uncertainty and the challenge of remaining present while grieving. From there, she allows the music to continually change shape.
‘Look’ surrounds its meditation on enduring love with sparse acoustic guitar, floating keys and distant organ, while ‘My Time’ introduces driving drums and palm-muted guitars to create a more determined sense of forward motion. Then ‘Invisible’ moves into slow blues, its harmonica and saturated vocals adding grit to an otherwise intimate record.
But some of the album’s strongest moments arrive when she gives difficult thoughts a physical form. ‘Unwanted Friends’ treats intrusive thoughts as unwanted companions, finding empowerment within darker psychological territory, while ‘Tears Still Flow’ pares grief back to piano and voice. And rather than trying to make sorrow enormous, she allows its simplicity to carry the weight.
‘Free’ subsequently opens the sound outward through slide guitar, airy reverb and soaring backing vocals, before country-leaning ‘Pale Imitation’ turns towards comparison and self-worth.
The six-minute ‘What Do You Really Need?’ provides a fitting conclusion, questioning perfectionism, hustle culture and the constant demand for more. After an album spent navigating loss and uncertainty, she finishes by reconsidering what’s actually necessary.
Over two and a half years, Blank Instrument has described these songs as changing how she understands her voice, her writing and herself. That transformation can be felt in an album where vulnerability gradually becomes something closer to acceptance.
Julie’s absence remains embedded in its story, but so does the gift she left behind. ‘Jumping at Ghosts’ ultimately understands that moving forward doesn’t require leaving everything behind.