flowers must die: kompost

In Sweden in the early-to-mid '70s, the egalitarian spirit that many thought revolutionary to punks in the UK was nothing new for the heads to be found enjoying the cult Swedish psychedelia of bands like Träd, Gräs och Stenar or Älgarnas Trädgård. It's exactly this lineage, forty plus years later, where one can find Flowers Must Die. The six-piece Swedish outfit's full-length debut on Rocket Recordings, Kompost, is a landmark moment for an outfit pursuing an improvisation-based approach removed from the codified realm of contemporary psych. It explores the unhinged territory fueled by diverse record collections, yet it's unique to their own collective headspace. Kompost shows them honing their improvisatory excursions into coherent song craft, amidst spectral techno and cosmic disco shapes, as the angular post-punk pop of The Sugarcubes sits alongside the narcotic clangor of prime Royal Trux, and one-take spontaneity locks horns with nocturnal revelation. Here the outward-looking spirit of 1971, and the anything-goes mentality of the Scandinavian freaks of yore, is transposed elegantly to a modern era in need of new horizons, and in a manner refreshingly bereft of retro chic.