FORMER GHOSTS – FLEURS « New music, features, reviews, news and free mp3s

FEATURES

ALBUMS

LIVE

“We get along really well, we don’t argue or get drunk and call each other bastards.”

ALBUM REVIEWS

Captain Ahab

End of Irony

(Deathbomb Arc)

Since Mika Miko split and No Age started touring the world, LA’s The Smell scene has been searching for a new, less garage-y sound, and its found it in ravesploitation.

Kele

The Boxer

(Wichita/Polydor)

READ

Tokyo Police Club

Champ

(Memphis Industries)

READ

LIVE REVIEWS

Liars

Shepherd's Bush Empire , London

Liars have always been proponents of the idea of more – more bass, more fuzz, more weirdness.

Album Review

Former Ghosts

Fleurs

[Upset The Rhythm]

8/10

It’s fair to say that it probably wasn’t a bunch of daisies that inspired Freddy Ruppert, Nika Roza and Jamie Stewart to call their electro-doom-pop side-project’s album after the French word for flowers. While it’s no surprise that something Xiu Xiu’s main creative force (Stewart) is involved with makes for absorbing, albeit somewhat morbid listening, the amount of clear-cut hooks on display do make you sit up and move closer to the speaker. Out of the ether, numb, scattered beats crawl underneath reverb-heavy synth carpets, echoing Cold Cave and (to a lesser but still notable extent) Casiotone For The Painfully Alone. ‘Mother’ is a painfully strained letter to a dead loved one, while on ‘In Earth’s Palm’ Roza sings a drowning siren’s last words. Lie down and listen to the flowers wither – it’s a beautiful sound.

By Matthias Scherer