Florist, the Brooklyn-based bedroom pop outfit fronted by Emily Sprague, have been putting out music for a couple of years but their latest release, The Birds Outside Sang, is their début full-length album. Florist are a key part of the Brooklyn arts collective The Epoch, who have been facilitating great music for a good while now, so you know to expect good things. The album has an almost whimsical but heartfelt simplicity, an atmosphere that the cover art does a good job of capturing, but is also fixated on matters fleshier and bloodier and more physical. Sprague says that the album is about “the speed at which rain falls, life goes on, and people grow. It’s one part a personal, autobiographical, and almost completely chronological telling of a time in my life full of confusion, physical + emotional pain, loneliness, and hope…an attempt to highlight the importance of love and the things in life that give you something special to hold on to, to find a calm that can carry you through being alive and being scared.”
Opener ‘Dark Light’ feels enclosed and claustrophobic, Sprague singing about the aftermath of an accident she suffered a few years ago, a theme which reoccurs throughout the record. ‘I Was’ follows, a sad-sounding song that is actually suffused with hope, a song about finding your place in the world and overcoming the past. When Sprague sings “i’ve found a body, soul and mind that i can keep and now i’m not afraid i’ve learned to love it and to keep it all the same,” you get the feeling she really means it. ‘Rings Grow’ starts sparse but comes crunching into some kind of life, before ‘A Hospital + Crucifix Made Of Plastic’, which is little more than vocals and background percussion and Sprague’s vocals delivering neatly poetic lines which hold a deceptive ominous edge:
“i’m in a sunny park
lying face down on my back on a crucifix
that’s made of plastic
and it’s painful
but i don’t feel pain at all”
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‘Thank You’ is a spoken word ode to the rise and set of the sun, set over high-pitched keys like static from space, and later an account of the moments before the traffic accident that caused Sprague so much woe. Perhaps for this reason, ‘The Birds Outside Sang’ feels like a dawning day and ends with a mantra-like section that feels somehow monumental, like the start of something more than just another day. “Does the night sky terrify you?” She asks. “And does the day sky mesmerize you and make you dream things better than the day? do you and your friends wanna come into the field and watch the fireworks shoot up into the air?” ‘White Light Doorway’ is the first of two songs that you may recognise from a prior Florist may5to12 release, although it’s been given a new coat of paint since then, and ‘Cold Lakes/Quiet Dreams’ is about as straight “indie pop” as The Birds Outside Sang gets. ‘1914’ is the second of the may5to12 songs, but has a complete makeover as Sprague is joined on vocal duties by the rest of the band, morphing it into a slow and sweet singalong, the perfect illustration of the strength-in-numbers message that pins the album together. It’s also just really nicely written:
“grab me by my shoulder blades
and hang me out to dry
i’m a mess
and i need someone to help me out with that
eyes just like a skyline even when they’re wet
and the window is foggy
and the window has a tint”
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‘Dust Inside the Light’ is hushed and insular, a throwback to Sprague’s solo material, and then we come to the final track, which is also my favourite. ‘Only a Prayer, Nothing More’ feels like a distillation of all those things that Sprague says she intended the album to represent. It’s little more than acoustic guitar and Sprague’s vocals and some very minimal percussion and is a great example of how sometimes simplicity is best, how simple songs can hold a power that far exceeds the sum of their musical parts.
“thunderstorms, a friendly thing that remind me i could be dead
it’s 2 am i’m lying in my cotton bed
i wish that i could rip the roof to see the stars
but the off-white light on the ceiling will be fine tonight”
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The song, and the album as a whole, is quintessentially a product of The Epoch, wrapped up in the same part-wistful, part-hopeful vibe as Small Wonder’s Wendy and Bellows’ Blue Breath and Told Slant’s Still Water. It’s a conscious reaction against sneering irony and the apparent cynical disaffection of youth, an album which lays bare its author’s thoughts and worries and feelings in the hope of making some small difference. In the hope of helping us too.
You can get The Birds Outside Sang now on vinyl or CD via Double Double Whammy or as a download via the Florist Bandcamp page.