Although they are new to me, The Flowers of Hell have been around for over a decade and have quite a discography. I’ll be honest with you; this band photo was the first thing that caught my attention:
I clicked over to their Soundcloud page and right at the top is a cool cover version of Joy Division’s “Atmosphere.” It’s got some different instrumentation than the original and the female vocal adds a nice texture to the song.
To various degrees, they generally mix typical instruments used in classical music with some rock instrumentation. They describe themselves as “a trans-Atlantic group of 16 or so independent experimental musicians led by synaesthete Greg Jarvis.” Synaesthesia is a neurological condition which, in Jarvis’ case, causes him to see sounds as visual shapes around him.
Their music is difficult to pigeonhole. They have an album of covers but don’t be fooled by the classical instrumentation; these are not plain vanilla orchestral covers, but instead mix the instruments, the musicianship, and rock sounds in very clever ways. They have an amazing take on “Mr. Tambourine Man” that sounds like a lost Velvet Underground and Nico track.
Moving to a very different place on the musical spectrum, their song “O” is 45 minutes of awesome. It sounds like an orchestra warming up before a concert, but is clearly more organized than that. Various instruments come to the fore and just as quickly move to the background, snippets of songs appear and quickly float away… at times it’s beautiful, at times more chaotic. I’ll give it my own “O” – Otherworldly. I’m guessing it may also be a good example how the synethaesia impacts the music…I could almost see the shapes coming and going over the duration.
Also on their resume, The Flowers of Hell have the Lou Reed seal of approval (if that does anything for you). Not sure if it was the Velvets vibe to many of their tracks or their version of Laurie Anderson’s “O Superman” (here titled “O Superheroin”) that caught Lou’s attention, but it doesn’t matter; Lou was right about this group. Laurie Anderson, by the way…also Lou Reed approved.