Florist – ‘Jellywish’ album review: the end of the world never sounded so good
THE SKINNY: The end of the world has never sounded so good as this or so tranquil. As Eden burns all around us, you can soften the blow of these end times we’re living through by popping on a pair of headphones and cueing up the latest record, Jellywish, from New York folk four-piece Florist.
The spectre of death is floating all around the air that this album breathes, whether it’s the individual death that we’re all guaranteed, the death of any doomed relationship, you may find yourself in, or the impending collective death that we all suspect is coming our way before long.
But if that all sounds too doom-and-gloom for you, then don’t worry too soon because nothing on this album sounds as serious as the songs’ subject matter suggests. For all the weariness in the words (and look, there’s a lot in every song), there is a lightness and weightlessness to the sparse, bright and carefree music which sits underneath the breathy vocals supplied by bandleader Emily Sprague. For every thought about dying, there is one about flying. For every ending, there is a new beginning. The words might be saying that the old world is ending, but the music suggests that a new one is being reborn. And, as Sprague sings on ‘This Was a Gift’, “only the dead survive” anyway.
Suspended on a bed of gentle guitars and supplemented with water-colour piano parts, occasional percussion, bass and spacey synths, Jellywish floats through your ears with a heavenly haze and warms you from within. Sprague’s breathy vocal is a highlight on each song and sits beautifully in between all the space left by the other instruments. The album is a gentle, calming, soothing kindness in a time of struggle and the perfect antidote to the slow-motion apocalypse unfolding outside the window.
While Sprague steals the show with her lyrics and vocals, there are also swells and shimmers from each of the instruments, which threaten to bubble up at times and take centre stage. The piano is a pleasure wherever it shows up, while the gentle acoustic guitar rhythms and counter-melodies are always perfectly pitched to be just the right side of enough, not too much and not too little to carry the songs and vocals along. A flickering electric guitar recalls Nels Cline’s always-excellent Wilco embellishments during songs like ‘Have Heaven’ and ‘All the Same Light’, while elsewhere, there are very faint evocations of artists like Courtney Barnett, Hand Habits, Faye Webster and, at times, SOAK, across the album, as well.
If there was one criticism you could level against the release, it’s that there is not much variety across the record, but then again, in the modern age where the value of the album as a collective concept and body of work has been completely stripped out by streaming giants and paid-for-playlist-placements, even that in itself is a refreshing antidote. This is a record that rows and flows together, an album that you’ll want to listen to in its entirety, and a collection of songs which is only improved by the context of the ones that came on either side of it.
“It’s been a long time since we laughed until we cried”, Sprague sings at one point towards the end of closer ‘Gloom Designs’. “It’s been a short time in the entirety of life.” Sprague and the rest of Florist manage to slow down time itself with the songs on their gorgeous new album. You might not laugh until you cry at any point during its 40 minutes, but spend enough time with the album, take it all in, and you might find yourself crying, nonetheless.
For fans of: Doomscrolling in coffee shops on Sundays, divining the apocalypse in your tea leaves, and imagining what it would sound like if Phoebe Bridgers or Michelle Zauner fronted Wilco.
A closing comment from the impending ending of the world: “Maybe the humans aren’t so bad, after all, I mean, they did at least make some pretty great music.”
Jellywish track by track:
Release: April 4th | Producer: Florist | Label: Double Double Whammy Records
‘Levitate’: “Every day I awake, wait for the tragedy” is a hell of an opening line for an album—and a phrase that Leonard Cohen would be proud of having come up with—and perfectly sets the tone for all that is to come across the rest of Jellywish. Equally scene setting is the soft acoustic guitar, which wanders around the song, and the eventual piano and synth parts, as well as all the space which surrounds each element of the track. [3.5/5]
‘Have Heaven’: One of the most interesting songs on the entire album. Carried on a not-quite Latin rhythm, this ripples and flows with a web and swell of guitars, percussion and echoes. It threatens to overflow and burst into something huge but never quite pushes all the way into oblivion. With inventive rhymes and intricate imagery, ‘Have Heaven’ is a quietly Hellish but devilishly delightful number. [4.5/5]
‘Jellyfish’: Back to the more straight-ahead, more real-world folksiness of the opening song rather than a further exploration of the liminal underworld hinted at in ‘Have Heaven’, this nearly-title track is another evocative and introverted examination of the world we’re living in, and all of our places in it. [3/5]
‘Started to Glow’: A celestial folk piece about dreams, death and defying gravity, ‘Started to Glow’ opens with the best lyric that Jeff Tweedy ever wrote, “I’m thinking about dying again”. From there, each of the images piles up to paint a beautifully grotesque picture of angels, stars, car crashes and dreaming of flying. With all that going on, it’s lucky that the music isn’t doing anything much to distract from the story. [4/5]
‘This Was a Gift’: If the music wasn’t so soothing, or the lyrics so strong, you’d be forgiven for flagging with the one-speed, one-note feel of this record by this point. “I just want music in my life”, Sprague sings during ‘This Was a Gift’, and fittingly, it’s one of the more musically engaging numbers on the album, owing to the steady beat from the rarely-utilised drum kit and a swirl and blend of dreamy guitars and piano. “I’m your guide”, Sprague chants throughout the closing section of the song, and with her leading the way, you can trust you’re on the right course as the second half of the album comes into view through the mist. [4/5]
‘All the Same Light’: Another slow-burn song, ‘All the Same Light’ uses all the same tricks that Florist have been using so far on the record to try and get us someplace new, but adds a few more on top, this time, too. There’s a glitching, twitching synth at the start and throughout the song, battling for space with a ringing guitar tone, which gives a feeling of the song drifting in on some far-off distant signal. Crossing the country from Arizona to LA, there are some inventive rhymes here which take you on a trip through your mind before giving way to a far-out, spaced-out, earthy, grounded guitar solo to see the song out. [4/5]
‘Sparkle Song’: Everything good that happens in this song happens better elsewhere across the album. It’s the most lightweight of all the songs on Jellywish, and while it isn’t a bad song by any stretch of the imagination, it’s certainly the weakest, and, ironically, it’s the song that sparkles the least out of any of them. [2.5/5]
‘Moon, Sea, Devil’: From the weakest song on the album to one of the strongest. ‘Moon, Sea, Devil’ picks up sonically where ‘Sparkle Song’ left off and lights it up. At just 02:16, this is the shortest song on the album by far, but it manages to whole worlds in such a short amount of time. The title tells a story by itself, but the lyrics flesh the tale out for you further. “I reach through the veil”, Sprague sings right at the death. “Oh, and the other worlds surround me”. [4/5]
‘Our Hearts in a Room’: As much a poem as a song, this is perhaps the most beautiful piece of music and writing on the album and is also the most Wilco-esque song out of any of them (and incidentally competes for that comparison with all the other best songs on the record—make of that what you will). Sprague’s mighty yet hushed and delicate delivery is as old as the trees and as fresh as the air. ‘Our Hearts in a Room’ sounds like a forest when the trees are in bloom. [5/5]
‘Gloom Designs’: It’s only when this song finishes that you realise you have listened to an entire album in what felt like no time at all. Maybe it even felt like you fell out of time entirely when you were listening and drifting away into the clouds, into the cosmos, into a dream and into the next world. This album could be one long, beautiful song, or it could be a million ideas held together by string, wood, wires and love. Really, it’s ten interconnected pieces where themes and dreams drift between one lyric and the next, and all of the songs are strong enough to stand alone, but—just like each and every one of us making our way in this difficult world that we’ve built for ourselves—they’re much stronger when they stand together. [4.5/5]
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