25 November 2018

FLOWERS MUST DIE – Där Blommor Dör 2018 (2LP Rev/Vega Records)

1972… Ash Ra Tempel releases their 2^nd album “Schwingungen”. Side One closes with “Darkness: Flowers Must Die”… Fast forward to 2007… A Swedish band formed, taking the name from that song and influenced by all these Cosmic Space Psych Kraut bands like Amon Duul II, Hawkwind and Ash Ra Tempel of course. Through the years they have added lots of other influences and interesting “elements” in their sound… Fast forward to 2018… Flowers Must Die release their 5^th album and here’s what the press release reads:

“The double album named “Där Blommor Dör” (Where Flowers Dies) marks the end of both the record label “rev/vega rec.” that released the band’s first three albums and, belatedly, the first phase of the band’s “career” when they were still just a five-piece. But this album is not a wake, it is a celebration and a consummation of the ages, where the old meets the new in slightly dissonant harmony. The old is represented by four of the albums eight tracks that were all originally recorded during the first nine years of the band’s existence, before sixth member Lisa joined in the spring of 2015. These are recordings that, though well liked by the band, were not released at the time. In many cases, there was this intangible sense of something missing. The new consists of three droning folk-infused psych jams from one of the bands very first rehearsal sessions as a six-piece in their old rehearsal space in Linköping. The influence of Swedish psych/drone-pioneers Pärson Sound/Harvester/Träd, Gräs och Stenar has always been more or less apparent in FMD’s music, but here this influence definitely takes a front seat. There is also one more newer jam in the same vein from a late 2015 recording session at Element Studios in Gothenburg. The same session that produced the bulk of the band’s 2017 album “Kompost”, their second release on Rocket Recordings. “rev/vega rec.” is Rickard Daun’s label and the first record came out in 2002, this album will be its last release. In-between these two there have been 19 other numbered releases on various formats as well as a bunch of unnumbered CDrs. And he released the first FMD releases on CDr followed by a cassette and then the three LPs, the last one was a collaboration with Swedish label Kommun2. As with the three LPs, all the tracks are continuously numbered with Roman numerals. This final “rvr” release will continue that numbering tradition, making the last song on the album number XXIII. The artwork is a further extension of this theme of old meets new. The art on the back sleeve is created by Danilo Stankovic, the artist responsible for all the mesmerizing artwork on the first three albums and the front is done by Rickard Daun and layout by brother and bassist Martin Daun. Rickard has painted 20 unique sphere shaped objects for 20 different versions of the front sleeve. One of the original paintings will be included with each of the first 20 records, and the rest will feature a print of one of the 20 different spheres, giving the serious record collector an empty wallet”…

The album takes off with “Gör Det Inte”, one of the earliest recordings from FMD and date back to 2007. This is the first take on the track that later became “Möt Väggen” the opening track of band’s second album. A noisy, minimal tune with tons of feedback leading into a chaotic sounding background, reminding a modern version of the 80s Ministry band! The track is brutally interrupted and the scenery changes in a blink of an eye! In an acid folkie and darkish background, “Gömma” is a tempting experimental track with some intriguing buried female vocals. The feel of ‘experimentalism’ continues on “Oroa Dig Inte”, slightly electronically effected with the band’s familiar acid-dark-folkie background, a creepy psychic sonic distortion with a bucolic end that becomes the start of “Oro”, dark acid folklore straight out of the coldest Northern parts of Scandinavia, a kind of ‘distorted’ traditional tune with a cool trippy flute sound featuring Karl Bergstedt. FMD’s version of the traditional track ‘Sally Free and Easy’, here called “Träd, Gräs & Hö” (Trees, Grass and Hay) is an obvious homage to Träd, Gräs & Stenar, acidly drenched, folkie inspired with a psych-a-like soundscape under a dreamy but complex musical background! Another older track is the title track “Där Blommor Dör” which links back to “Kompost” where you could hear a short outtake before the last track of that album. Here it is presented in its full form, an 18 minute long droned jam from 2009, dark trippy and kosmische! “Dööm” is featuring Unni Zimmerdahl on Trumpet, it’s a free impro, eerie, psychic, dark jazzy and extremely doomy! “Ejefjallajökull” has been a reoccurring live track over the years, but the band has never finished this old studio recording until now. The title is taken from the volcano in Iceland that caused a lot of turmoil when it erupted in 2010, around the same time as FMD first started playing the song. It’s a weird trippy with a shamanic effected start, a tribal-like rhythm that becomes sharp offering a unique mix of psych, kraut, and space that melts inside your brain. “Ejefjallajökull” is a track that it could easily be one of the main themes of a nowadays futuristic remake of “Midnight Express”! There’s also a bonus track (only as a download) entitled “Syntsylt”, another experimental improvised jam with various effects and sounds that are creating a mysterious but attractive disordered chaos! Well, in conclusion, this is a ‘hard’ album, a ‘difficult’ album, a non-digestible album! So, if you’re searching for something ‘different’ that will convulse you, “Där Blommor Dör” is the one that will remove the dust from the very inner side of your mind… An ideal musical path that will hopefully lead you to explore unknown territories, well hidden inside your… (TimeLord Michalis)