We are very excited to announce that Flowers Must Die, the Swedish band who are celebrating their 20th anniversary this year have revealed the details of a new mind-expanding album called ‘Tystnad’.
Listen to 'Nåja', the first track to be revealed from the album above.
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'Tystnad' is released on 25 September, but the album is available to preorder now on ltd edition vinyl (only 300 copies) via the link below or via all good record shops.
We are also offering a special bundle offer where you can buy 'Tystnad' + the band's recently self-released EP 'Stormen Före Lugnet' – an EP of tracks that were recorded as part of the 'Tystnad' sessions.
https://rocketrecordings.com/products/tystnad
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To celebrate the announcement of 'Tystnad', Flowers Must Die are playing a rare (and free) show in Malmö this Saturday:
15 Aug / Malmö / Annelundsgården
The word ‘Tystnad’ – literally translated – means silence. In this case, the Silence is less that of zen buddhism or that of John Cage, rather the name of the studio where Flowers Must Die – carriers of the torch of Swedish psychedelia for now nearly 20 years – retreated to make their most head–expanding album to date.
Located near the Norwegian border in the verdant rural Värmland region, Silence Studios has been a countercultural hub for decades. Started by the label who released classic Swedish albums by Bo Hansson, Älgarnas Trädgård, Kebnekajse and Träd Gräs Och Stenar, and also previously functioning as a commune, it’s attained a legendary status as a residential outpost where bands can retreat to stretch out creatively and focus their psychic powers.
What emerged is a collection of expansive and incandescent jams that maps out a lysergic trajectory between the idealistic, anything–goes mania of early ‘70s psychedelia and the 21st century. Tystnad is the sound of a band buoyed by the afterglow of their last Rocket release, 2017’s Kompost and its attendant touring, and expanding into extrapolations that marry the wildest free improv with haunting melody.
Friends joined the band in the studio in this pursuit both as guest musicians and chefs, as the boundaries between everyday life and creativity blurred. “The environment we worked in was an inspiration, both from the studio’s legacy but also that we ate and slept in the same house as we recorded in with no distractions from outside more than the beautiful nature” notes the band’s keyboardist Rickard Daun. Thus the sound that sprang forth took Eastern, Western and Swedish folk influences as ingredients in a heady brew which was then embellished by more guest musicians (including members of Rocket acts Ved and Och before being mixed and edited down in classic Can fashion over a number of years.
As notions of the fabric of time and space warp and weft, the nine year gap between the recordings and their release is rendered meaningless. Relocations to foreign countries, new professional ventures, technical snafus and a global pandemic have all played their part in this delay. Yet from the freewheeling Amon Duul–damaged blowout of ‘Raka Vägen För Damo’ to the lilting catchiness of ‘Mantra’, and from the riff–driven colossus ‘Ombudsmän’ to the ritualistic motorik mania of the title cut, this is Flowers Must Die at their most fresh vital and iridescent. If Tystnad, as the band claim, is to be their last recording made in one room at the same time, then it displays a formidable escape velocity.
Who’s to say whether Flowers Must Die tapped into a Swedish continuum, one which has existed through centuries via the work of multimedia artist Öyvind Fahlstromm surrealist Hilma Af Klint or author Patrick Lundborg just as much as Pärson Sound, Dungen or Goat.