Blanka

Background

"Blanka" is an instrumental demo created in 2008 during the A Thousand Suns sessions. It was released in November 2014 on the LP Underground XIV CD. The song was stitched together from various guitar riffs that were recorded at different points, having no consistent tone on the guitar tracks.

On the LPU exclusive video "Track By Track With Brad - 2", released on January 30, 2015, Brad Delson said: "Alright, this one is called "Blanka". You guys are getting a lot of demos from A Thousand Suns. This is definitely guitar driven demo. I'm almost certain Mike played the guitar on this demo. The knock on me during this period of time is that I stopped playing guitar, which is entirely true. But I did get inspired to pick up other instruments in the studio, work on production, editing, keyboards, drum machines. I've played guitar since I was 13 years old, 12 years old, which was, let's just say a long time ago, and one thing that's cool about being a musician is there's ways to make music on so many different kinds of instruments, and specially on Linkin Park. Whatever clause of to what roles we, each individual play during the making of an album. So if someone feels like playing drums, they can get on the drums and play drums. If someone wants to sing or work on lyrics or, in this case, if the singer wants to, you know, do anything, it's all open in the end now. I think for a 100 other albums we just listed Linkin Park. We used to say like "guitars, Brad Delson", you know, and "drums, Rob Bourdon", and know we just put "Linkin Park is" because really what you hear is the fact of all 6 of us working together in every aspect of what we're making."

On Linkin Park's European Tour in June 2008, the band used days off between shows to record music at two different locations in Europe. One was Sono Records Studio in Nouzov, Czech Republic and the other was Tritonus in Berlin, Germany, both of which are mentioned in the A Thousand Suns booklet.

Mike visited Sono Records Studio on Thursday, June 19th between the Graz, Austria and Venezia, Italy shows on the tour to record music. "Blanka" is the name of a tunnel complex in Prague, Czech Republic. There were two press articles (with several pictures) that covered Mike's visit, all roughly translated to English:

"Picking between Austria, Italy, and Czech Republic, the band chose the Czech Sono, apparently only because of the older, beautiful instrumentals in the studio. The keyboards and amps specifically interested LP. The studio was booked from Wednesday to Friday, with the visit coming on Thursday. Up until the last minute, it was not clear who all would come and what they would do on Thursday until Mike Shinoda and his engineer came. Mike came with his hard drive and recorded keys for two songs and worked until he almost missed his plane to leave. In the end, he worked with synthesizers and a Hammond grand piano. Of course, we disconnected the computers from the Internet. He made simple drum loops, just kick, snare and hi-hat. The session lasted about eight hours."

"I think he chose us because we have facilities comparable to London, and he studied our client list which includes David Bowie and Glen Hansard. I know that besides us, he was looking at Italy, Germany, and Austria. By far the greatest interest Shinoda had was in various older keys and ancient tools that Sonu prepared, because Shinoda was looking for unique sounds. He was very nice, with childlike enthusiasm. He ran around trying everything. I was surprised that with everything he recorded, he is very good with Pro-Tools. He also liked the sound of the drums. Finally, there was a large tubular bell (huge pipe hanging on a soccer gate structure) that he played a melody on. After the session, he quickly left for the airport, not wanting to leave the studio."

There is also a demo called "Sono" in the first Stagelight Linkin Park bundle.

Versions

Note: Only the date of the very first release of each version is listed.

Title	Album	Length	Recorded	Released	Notes
Blanka (2008 Demo)	LP Underground XIV	2:33	2008	November 21, 2014

Gallery

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  Mike with Sono Records Studio staff Milan Cimfe and Pavel Karlík

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  Gear that Mike used at Sono Records Studio

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  Magazine article about Mike's visit to Sono Records Studio