Hey, Shut Up Again

Good music never gets old. A case in point is the Flowers Must Die track “Hey, Shut Up!”, which was on last years ‘Kompost’ album released on Rocket Recordings. It’s old in the sense of how fast the music industry moves nowadays, but also because the original recording session took place in 2013. And it doesn’t stop there, the song is an homage to Bo Diddley ́s “Mama Keep Your Big Mouth Shut”from 1964, or The Pretty Things version from1965 or The Missing Links or...

The list could be long so we decided to keep that tradition and asked some friends of Flowers Must Die to do their version of the track. Some from the “Rocket family” like Russian group Gnoomes or long time Rocket collaborator Jamie Paton (Höga Nord/DFA), Mattias Nihlén from the Malmö-based band VED who earlier this year made their Rocket debut with their brilliant EP DDTT. Mattias is a longtime friend of FMD and they have often collaborated and/or shared a stage with over the years. Underground rave legend NOS and his duo NOS++T++ are another Swedish act with strong ties to the adventurous but somewhat furtive Malmö music scene that we have always felt very much a part of, despite only ever having one member actually living there.

Swedish artist Carl Michael Von Hausswolff under the alias CMVH is FMD drummer Lars’ childhood friend from Linköping, and they have collaborated on various art projects every now and then since the 80s. If the name rings a bell for people not familiar with the Swedish art scene it’s probably because of his daughter Anna Von Hausswolff.

A more recent FMD friendship comes from the band Horseface who instead of remixing the track made a cover singing the lyrics in Finnish. Further darker or moodier tracks on the compilation are from the American artist Dorit Chrysler, who is a Theremin genius, and our great Italian friend Mai Mai Mai, one of the leading artists in the Italian Occult Psychedelia scene. Finally, Jonas Höglundfrom FMD added his Manuel Göttsching-inspired remix he created back in 2013.

Hey, Shut Up! has always existed in different mixes, the “original” from the record, a slightly longer and rougher version for Rockets’ Rough Trade ́s “Label Of The Month” sampler also the contained Radio Edit. If that wasn’t enough, FMD’s Rickard Daun decided to release the so far unheard ‘full version’ for this remix album. But hey, who doesn’t like all those different versions of Stereolab tracks for example?

The video to accompany the track’s Radio Edit is again made by Rickard Daunand uses simple images made with crayons as well as images of a deaf and dumb shepherd dancing around in his own creation, The Stone Garden. A symbolic reference to the lyrics of the track which was a reaction to the sad and worrying climate in Sweden and the rest of the world, with more and more right wing parties coming to power. Images of a dancing man with a disability showing he can be happy and appreciate his beautiful garden in the desert, the small and simple things in the world, to go against the grain and live their own way of life. So dig into almost 70 minutes of music which twist and turn the track into Noise,Industrial, Disco Dub, Post Punk, Cosmic Techno and Minimal Drones.