AWmusic

Flowers of Hell are an interesting big band that come out of Canada. In an age of minimalistic music, it’s refreshing to have the chance to review a band that has gone big. I wish I could call it big band, because it doesn’t quite strike me as large enough to be orchestral. An orchestra usually has 100 or so members. But calling it big band suggests that it might be jazz, which it clearly is not. Throwing a blanket definition on the group isn’t so easy.

Once Upon a Time in the West

When I first stepped into the album, I was greeted by the lonely wail of a solo harmonica. I immediately thought of one of the greatest of all western films, Once Upon a Time in the West. This has a visual effect: in my mind the music has created the yellow hard-compacted sand of some wind swept Western American desert from the movie. From those first moments of Opus 66, the harmonica becomes distorted, and a friendly guitar rhythm picks up, along with a warm and friendly saxophone. This leads into the full ensemble getting into the action. The rhythm of the guitar matches the beat of a galloping horse while the accompanying band heats up and expands, giving the feel of coming into a more green, grassy, and comforting scene. No longer are we alone, but we’ve come to our destination – that primitive homestead for which we had set out for on our journey across a raw American frontier. Towards the end of the opus, everything slows down, and the golden sun sets while we sit on the roughly hewn porch.

It is no mistake that images like this should come to mind as one listens to the music. The composer, Greg Jarvis, intentionally sought to inspire musical imagery through the use of synaesthesia. Synaesthesia, in this case, is quite simply the synthesis of imagery wrought by sound. It’s not too difficult to see how successful Greg Jarvis has been. This technique is nothing new. Wagner was a master of synaesthesia, as was Beethoven, Prokofiev, and a number of other composers well before the term was coined. Movies are rife with synaethetic imagery to enhance the images on the screen.

The second track, Bluemschen, is rain on a roof while in a small house. A woman is speaking in German. Is this our German opera? Following tracks run a gamut of scenes and images. I did not get an underlying theme between all the tracks. Following track three, I felt transported to a trek through some space aliens’ nest, and half way expected to meet up with Sigourney Weaver and her alien friends. A few moments later I’m in a haunted house or on a heavily fogged up bay surrounded by blind tankers. When we get to the end of Darklands, I feel like my brains are being dragged against a chalkboard and I want to crawl out of my skin. Maybe Jarvis was saying “Wake up!” on those notes.

This is where I see this music: as a background for a movie. If this is the intent of the composer, then certainly he has done a stellar job of bringing together excellent musicians who are clearly of high caliber. He captures images, emotions, and movement within the pieces quite successfully. Whether or not I have caught them the way he intended, it’s impossible to say (I suppose I could have asked him).

This music is excellent background music. I’m one of those people who easily gets distracted by background conversation and noise. The rhythm of the music is lively without demanding too much attention. It’s just the sort of music that is helpful in focusing the attention on a mid term exam in a busy library.

But I ask, what happened to those caliber of composers from centuries past? Two albums over the last 7 years is not all that great when compared to the likes of Mozart or Bach. Even Bob Dylan doesn’t hold a candle to them with a mere 50+ albums over one of the most brilliant careers out of the last century. They say that Bach would compose and train a crew of musicians for a new piece every Sunday at his church. I guess this is done with jazz to an extent. But that would be confusing composition with improvisation. Jarvis has done a lovely job with his album, but surely it would be nice to see him step up with his compositions to do more albums and hold steadier themes throughout those albums rather than the zigzag effect between visual themes that I get from the different tracks, and sometimes within the same pieces. Listening to this album from front to back is like taking a jaunt on your horse in the west 150 years ago followed by a walk through an unknown, alien planet which may or may not be friendly – and which may be the kind of alien that will implant their seed in your body and bind you in one of their spider-like cocoons.

I’m presenting three samples today of the music from this album.
1) Opus 66
2) Bluemschen
3) Darklands

Currently the CD can be purchased or the MP3s individually or the whole of the album. The MP3s have translated fairly well considering it’s a miniature orchestra, and all the pieces are available via MP3. For the ultimate listening experience, Jarvis mentions in his interview that an LP will be made available in the middle of next month for true audiophiles.

Greg Jarvis, a man that reminds me of Bob Dylan in look when Dylan was in his 50s, was kind enough to grant awmusic some answers that I was dying to get my eyes on. Enjoy!

Interview:

1) Where did you get the name of your band, why did you name it that, and what has been the general reaction to it?

The name comes from an old blues ideal about music transforming the misery & toil of musician’s into pleasure for the listener – a kind of schadenfreude thing. The reaction has always been mixed. People tend to either love it or just not dig it; they’re rarely ambivalent about it – and that’s something we like. The majority get it – we’re confident in the music we make and wanted to have that reflected in a name that wasn’t namby-pamby. In retrospect though, if I’d realized churches were the best spaces for us to play I might have, erm, done some thinking about Hell.

2) You have a 20 member band – how is it possible to make a profit between so many members?

For membership I charge an annual fee of…..no, but hey that’s an idea – if anyone would like to pay to be in the group, I’d be happy to give them an audition. Our very first show consisted of just a 20 minute long instrumental symphonic space rock song, so I think it’s safe to say we’ve never been expecting to buy castles & Rolls Royces out of this. We lose a fair whack- but in some ways that makes things easier & better. There’s no cash for anyone to fall out over and it means all who are in the group are in it 120% for the music.

3) Who is your target audience? At times I get the impression that the music is reaching out to a cinematic audience: are you trying to say hello to directors, or is this music designed for the home audio listener?

The target audience is myself, and I don’t say that to be cocky – it’s simply our process of things. The artistic decisions are made on the way things look in my synaesthetic visions, not on the basis of whether girls will or won’t dance to it. The fact that an audience beyond the musicians involved hear the stuff doesn’t factor in. Mind you I suppose I aim for a high production standard, as I know that the end product will be heard by some extremely well skilled producer-musicians who’ve guested with us like Sonic Boom from Spacemen 3 and Ivan Kral of the Patti Smith Group. But it doesn’t alter the actual music. As artists we’re very lucky in that having Kevin Shields, Sonic Boom, & the folks at NASA support what we do, we can feel a sense of validation of our art and don’t have to seek that from critics & audiences. I’ve often been inspired by an Iggy interview where he pointed out his best albums are ones he made when he didn’t give a shit about making it, and his weaker ones are from times he tried to succeed.

4) Classical music has a really hard time being represented by digital mediums. Do you feel that your band is limited by the fidelity? Do you have an option for folks looking for better sound than what can be found on an MP3? What is the best medium that your music can be found on?

Best medium our music can be found on is a stage on our May 5th – May 19th Western Canada tour, alas the next best substitute is the LP of Come Hell Or High Water that comes with a download code and a bonus BBC session. That’ll be out mid-May. I indeed think all recorded music is limited by the media formats and systems of our times. And it’s a shame when things like the Quedrophonic 4-way stereo systems (from the early seventies) don’t catch on – quadraphonic sound failed due to business mistakes, not musical errors. But now that concept is back in force with surround sound and I’d love to have the budget to do our next album in surround sound – there’s so many possibilities, I’m somewhat shocked that almost everyone’s still working in just stereo.

5) Who listens to and buys your music in a geographic sense?

Dunno! There’s no way to really tell who’s listening and there ain’t so many people buying music anymore. We were surprised on our recent UK tour when we were pulling in crowds in towns we’d never been to….it was like, ‘Wha-hey! We’ve got a following in Sheffield! All hail the Internet!’

6) How has Canada, your home and native land, received your music?

With true patriot love, and a bit of ‘where the fuck did that come from?’ – we emerged onto the local scene quite fully formed. Our first show in Canada was a sold out one opening for Sonic Boom in Toronto and our fifth one was opening for My Bloody Valentine in front of a couple thousand people. The group is made up of really highly skilled players with a great variety of experience so we were able to hit the ground running. And for me it’s nice to be making music at home; while I’ve had my work covered in prestigious British mags like NME, Q, and Mojo, it’s meant far more to see my band in Now – as a teenager I was hugely informed by its music pages, not so with the NME. But beyond traditional folk stuff, I see little connection between music and nation states – one day when I’ve got the time I want to form Musicians Without Borders. I think it’s a worthy concept!

7) If you had to do a second album, what would you do the same and different from the first?

- erm this is the second album so I’ll take it that you’ll rewrite that along the lines of what’ll you do different on the next album.

The next album is already in the works and it’s intended to be a four movement experimental symphony. Beyond that I want to do a series of EPs where we completely rip up our sound and start again with something completely different on each one. On the EPs we’ll move away from the symphonic space rock thing and focus on developing a sound based on the universals of music. I’ve done a lot of research into what musical motifs ring true for everyone from African mudhut villagers to Japanese salarymen and the lofty goal is to try and come up with an instrumental sound that’s beautiful to all people in all places. I don’t know if we’ll get there, but I’m sure our attempts will be worth listening to.

Filed under: Flowers of Hell

Tags: album, Interview