Tystnad

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Release Date: 25 September

(All physical vinyl copies comes with download codes)

Flowers Must Die

‘Tystnad’

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.

What’s clear is that is a timeless treatise, and a potent channelling of spirits – transcending genre in search of enlightenment anew. The title of the final track here – a hypnotic spiral of repetition happily traversing on a never–ending wheel – is a quote from the Strugatsky Brothers’ Roadside Picnic which translates roughly as ‘Happiness to all, and may none leave here disappointed’. To which one can only say, mission accomplished.

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