Silk Flowers first appeared on my pop radar with a couple of 45s and EPs around 2008-9. Intrigued, I decided to try and guess their geographical origin by listening for inflections in the music that might provide some clues. North of England, definitely. Not Manchester (the city), or Merseyside or Yorkshire though. Somewhere in Greater Manchester. Maybe Bolton. Maybe Chorley. Possibly Wigan. Yeah, definitely Wigan. Later, I found out they were actually from Manhattan or Brooklyn, or both. So much for inflections.
The music on Silk Flowers is a strange and often unsettling mix. You get a vibe of closed-off gloom from it. As if its authors were consumptive Victorians in a locked ward in a sanitorium, who had nothing to do, then a time-traveller appeared from nowhere and gave them some synths, a drum machine and a microphone. To say that Silk Flowers owe Ian Curtis a debt is to misunderstand what’s going on here. This isn’t a band that are trying to emulate Ian Curtis. They’re taking an element of the Curtis thing, isolating it, and doing scientific experiments with it. Pitchfork (I just looked up a review) said the following in their review of the record:
Despite a list of influences eclectic and goth-y, and despite a singer doomed to Ian Curtis and/or Cookie Monster comparisons, Silk Flowers‘ pop instincts are surprisingly strong.
I like the Cookie Monster reference, because there is humour here, within these heavy, dank, bible-black atmospheres. The backing music is often sprightly despite itself. What was it Samuel Beckett said, again? Oh yeah – „Nothing is funnier than unhappiness“. I’ve never taken this to mean Schadenfreude though – because it’s fairly obvious that Beckett was dealing in universals. And if life is a one-way street to death, well, what can you do but laugh?
Rather then break this release down track-by-track, it’s probably better to dispense with the idea of constituent parts and see it as if each track is the same track, time overlapping, a musical Tralfamadore. It’s also good to dispense with the idea that you’re, like, listening to a record. Think of it as art and imagine you are walking through a gallery and this is the art that’s on the walls. This record is a triumph. A winner. And no mistake.
Notes: this post is #39 from our Lost Classics series. I think the band Silk Flowers is now no more. Short interview from ages ago here.