Again Rocket Recordings are well on the money and have brought another excellent band to everybody s attention. Named after an Ash Ra Tempel song and coming on like a supercharged Amon Düül II, Flowers Must Die are taking Krautrock inspired Psych Rock to places way beyond any normal comprehension of Psychedelia. On the surface it seems that the band are one of the many astral travelers that criss cross the highways and byways of time and space with sprawling cosmic soundscapes beamed back from the stars………but it’s not that simple. Look past the Krautrock influences of CAN, Bröselmaschine, Faust and the other groundbreaking German bands along with the Space Rock squall of early Hawkwind you will find a cacophony of beautiful noise that takes in Soul, Disco and Jazz with inspiration from such dissident sources such as Bobby Hutcherson, Angelic Upstarts, Skip James, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Blue Öyster Cult and Oscar Sulley & The Uhuru Dance Band. Yet another discovery from the fertile Swedish freakscene by Rocket Recordings and although grounded by their love of the early 70s Underground, Flowers Must Die debut album for the label, Kompost, shows the band honing their improvisatory freak outs into more coherent songcraft amidst mind bending spectral Techno and cosmic Disco shapes, where the angular Post-Punk twisted Pop of The Sugarcubes meets the narcotic noise of prime Royal Trux at their wasted best………………cool or what???
The Space Rock/Noise Pop intro of ‘Källa Till Ovisshet’ merges into mutant twisted Disco of ‘Hit’ (a tune that is both totally trippy and outrageously funky) and we have lift off!!! Kompost does not let up for the next 40 minutes as it twists and turns taking on new forms and sucking strange sounds into a swirling vortex of off kilter Psychedelia. Taking in fuzzed up and blissed out journeys to the further out (‘Why?’), brain scrambling noise (‘Hej Då’), freaked out Funk (‘Don't You Leave Me Now’) warped Post-Punk Pop songs (‘Hey, Shut Up’) and Cosmic jams (‘Svens Song’) along the way, Kompost is one of the most innovative and diverse Psych Rock records we have heard this year……………………it’s Pop music of sorts but from an alternative reality. Flowers Must Die have taken the outward-looking spirit of 1971 and the anything-goes mentality of the Scandinavian freaks of the recent past and have transposed this vibe elegantly to a modern era in need of new horizons and in a manner refreshingly different to the stylistically rather narrow, spectrum of space rock revivalism that has grown increasingly crowded over the last decade. What’s more, who’s to say what dimensions this alchemical force have yet to explore.
Due for release on 28/04/2017, Kompost will be available on yellow vinyl from all good record shops, online from Amazon and the usual Psych Rock stockists or directly from Rocket Recordings/Flowers Must Die here………. https://flowersmustdie.bandcamp.com/album/kompost where you can also buy the digital download……………….there if no indication that there will be a CD available, however keep ‘em peeled if there is any news of any future CD release.
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