Some bands are so adept at communicating intimacy and emotional connection that they feel like friends. Florist is one of those bands. It’s helpful that the group is made up of four close collaborators who have been churning out unassumingly beautiful albums for the past decade. Their self-titled new album, Florist, is a beautiful ode to the magic of human connection. The record is a warm hug, enveloping listeners in a bubble of love as the band explores grief, joy, and everything in between.

Florist is comprised of Emily Sprague (guitar, synth, vocals), Jonnie Baker (guitar, synth, sampling, bass, saxophone, vocals), Rick Spataro (bass, piano, synth, vocals) and Felix Walworth (percussion, synth, guitar, vocals). Their new release was recorded over the summer of 2019, the first time the quartet recorded that way, and for that long. Sprague recalls. “Living together for a month is a really big part of why the arrangements are the way they are, and also why the instrumentals are such a huge part of the record.”

Though the group has released several albums since debut Living Alone in 2013, this is their first self-titled work. Sprague expounded on why this work was most fitting for their name, explaining, “We called it ‘Florist’ because this is not just my songs with a backing band. It’s a portrait of who we are as collaborators, as really long-term friends and as extended family as well.”

The album opens on the luxuriously lazy “June 9th Nighttime,” which features a wailing guitar and light woodwind embellishments against a backdrop of chirping crickets. This track is a perfect introduction to the project, readying listeners for the meditative and thoughtful record to come. There are several soundscapes like this throughout the record, most notably “Finally,” the “Bells” trilogy, and closing track “Johnny On The Porch.” These tracks are careful and calming, perfect medicine for these chaotic and cacophonic times. These meditations and musings perfectly exemplify the band’s ability to soak in slow-moving offerings.

On the other hand, tracks like “Red Bird Pt 2” are packed with the masterful lyrics that fans have come to expect from Florist. On this song, Sprague reflects on grief, singing, “How can it be that the days go on / and the red bird sings its red bird song. / It happened to us and it’s happened before and it happens all the same. / I can hear your singing still / Wake up in the morning / Let the morning come. / Sing me a song please / sing me a song.” Though simple, the lyrics are instantly relatable to anyone who has experienced a loss. On every Florist album, there is always a lyric or two that will linger for listeners long after the album has been relegated to a forgotten corner of Spotify. This release is full of these unforgettable, incredible bits of writing.

The songs names are short and simple—Like the titles of Edward Hopper paintings, they efficiently encapsulate the song by intimating where the song was recorded or the subject of the song. Indeed, listening to Florist is like walking through a well-curated museum. There are masterpieces on the wall. They’re all a little different, but they carry a common message. Audiences can dig for a deeper meaning, or they can simply look around and enjoy the beauty on the surface.

In some ways, Florist is a follow-up album to Sprague‘s 2019 “solo” album, Emily Alone. It’s unclear if Emily Alone was an extension of Florist or if Florist is an extension of Sprague herself, but it doesn’t really matter. When Sprague, Baker, Spataro, and Walworth come together, true artistry occurs.

“Do not say goodbye,” the group sings soberly on track “Organ’s Drone.” The sentiment rings true for fans—Though lengthy, the record is over too soon. Truly, it’s amazing to be alive while Florist releases music: the album is a beautifully packaged project that exhibits this quiet, thoughtful band at its finest.

This Summer, Brisbane’s dream pop singer-songwriter Harriette Pilbeam aka Hatchie will unveil her debut album Keepsake. Some weeks ago, she already shared the searing first single, “Without A Blush,” and we can now hear a second track off of the project. On “Stay With Me,” Hatchie deals with solitude as her lover has gone. About the track, she detailed:

[su_quote]”Stay With Me” was written as a writing exercise in an effort to step away from my usual style into something more fun and dancey. We originally wrote it with someone else in mind, but realized it was the perfect fit for my album as I wanted to expand into a different sound. It became one of my favourite songs on the record because I’m a sucker for crying-in-the-club tracks.[/su_quote]

The track also comes with a Joe Agius-directed video where the artist is in a club, dancing on her own. Watch below.

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“A need to be / Over there / Four states a / step a / way,” Hannah Read sings on Lomelda‘s most recent release, M for Empathy. These opening lyrics encompass a lot of the album’s overarching themes: an oxymoronic need for both nearness and farness, a deep longing to be with someone who is very distant, and a sense that a big change has just happened or is about to happen. Written during breaks from tours with Snail Mail and Frankie Cosmos and recorded in Read‘s hometown of Silsbee, TX, Lomelda‘s surprise record for Double Double Whammy feels like the quiet that occurs during the freefall between jumping out of the plane and opening your parachute.

It could be said that Lomelda‘s affinity for sparseness is partially to thank for the project’s success. Read‘s first release under the Lomelda moniker was with 2015 debut album Forever, a textbook example of a carefully produced, full-band sound complete with racing drumlines and bold guitar riffs. Feeling that the finished product wasn’t quite right, Lomelda re-released Forever under the title 4E six months later. A live recording of Forever recorded at Meads Recital Hall in Waco, TX, 4E is a completely different (and arguably better) beast—mainly because it places Read‘s transcendent vocals at the forefront of the record. No longer inundated with roaring guitars and thudding beats, 4E cemented Lomelda as the queen of all quiet and captivating. Follow-up Thx found a happy medium between Forever and 4E, demonstrating Lomelda‘s strengths as a band without ever taking away from Read‘s lyrics. Songs like “Interstate Vision” and “Bam Sha Klam” revealed a propensity for churning out incredibly intricate instrumentals to buttress Read‘s vocals, while classically acoustic tracks like “Nervous Driver” and title-track “Thx” relied on the relationship between Read and her acoustic guitar.

Thus far, Lomelda‘s discographic trajectory has taken an upwards, linear movement. Each release has consistently been better, stronger, and more sure than the last. However, M for Empathy doesn’t necessarily feel like the logical next sonic step. In fact, it’s difficult to describe the record at all. It’s not exactly a tour album, though the record does contain Lomelda‘s signature interest in movement. Though it contains elements of raw, absentminded bedroom pop, its studied perfect imperfection reveals it to be the studio album it is. M for Empathy is also incredibly short; all eleven songs clock in at less than eighteen minutes. Thematically, it touches on ideas that Lomelda has explored before: distance, love, wanting something you cannot have. Still, the energy is definitively different. While the record certainly contains heartbreakingly specific lyricism and a bouquet of different sounds, M for Empathy is an undeniable shift for Lomelda.

Despite its truncated run-time, this record contains multitudes. More specifically, it seems to have three distinctive styles. First, there is the classic Lomelda album. “I thought of many things to say to you,” Read sings on “Bust.” “But what were they what were they what were they…” The song erupts in a cacophony of twinkly, raindrop piano notes as Read continues to question, “What were they?” The next song, “Bunk,” is a love story that lasts a minute and some change. “So Bad 1, Girl” and “So Bad 2, Care” harken back most obviously to the head-nodding folk songs that encapsulate Lomelda‘s earlier works. All these tracks contain a through-thread of need—needing to talk to someone, needing to be near someone, needing to share—and a resistance to the thought of getting what one wants.

Next, there’s an experimental spontaneity to M for Empathy that’s sprinkled in here and there. Track “Tell” is reminiscent of American Pleasure Club (formerly known as Teen Suicide) with a gravelly guitar and a chorus of soft voices urging, “Tell me what you’ve been through.” The song is fun and scrappy, seemingly separate from the heaviness and sadness that represent so much of the rest of the album. “M for Magic,” is a reprieve that includes a guitar and piano solo, tips a hat to the ambient music that Lomelda has been releasing on SoundCloud throughout extensive touring.

Finally, there’s the section of this record that’s just truly depressing. In “Slide,” Lomelda sings, “Almost drove to Chicago / To see her from the crowd… Can’t kill myself / Can’t help / It now / It’s how / I felt.” She continues, “My friend called me on my cellphone / Normally I would ignore it / Something / Let me slide / And saved my life.” This small capsule of a narrative is a snapshot of a deeply lonely night, one that ends in unlikely salvation in the form of an unwanted call from a friend. “M for Me” almost reads like poetry, as Read sings, “What if I die before / I ever get to know you more / When I sleep am I still me to you / When you sleep you are still you to me.” These sad and spectacular tracks are easily the strongest on the record because, like the title encourages, they force the listener to practice empathy. One can’t listen without feeling, and in feeling these things together perhaps we are no longer alone.

It might seem like these three seemingly disparate parts could never contribute to a complete, whole album. Herein lies Read‘s greatest strength as a musician: She’s trustworthy. No matter how many funky rhythms, strange lyrics, and unpredictable tangents the album contains, the listener is always in good hands. The cost of this trust is that the piece (like many of Lomelda‘s releases) requires a bit of patience on the listener’s end, but it’s worth the attention. The album is perfect company for a sleepless night. While clearly each song remains deeply personal to Read, the sentiments sung are universally and devastatingly relatable.

Like most pieces of great art, M for Empathy raises far questions than it answers. Most pressing: What’s going to come next from Lomelda? In closing track “Watering,” Read sings, “I hope you’re ok / Swoonin’ in sun / Salty for her tongue / Salty for her tongue.” There it is again—this need, paired with this demand for detachment. Perhaps this is how listeners will feel after listening to this incredible album— a need for more, but an understanding that whatever’s coming next from Read is definitely worth waiting for. So, we wait.

Brisbane-based artist Harriette Pilbeam, better known as Hatchie, has shared a Joe Agius-directed video for her single “Sleep.” The John Castle-produced track is the fourth single to be taken from her upcoming debut EP.

About the track, Hatchie detailed:

[su_quote]’Sleep’ is about feeling frustrated with someone who can’t communicate their feelings. In this song I’m trying to coax someone into talking to me by any means necessary, even if it means visiting me in dreams. [/su_quote]

Before adding about the video:

[su_quote]We decided to play on the idea that I’m trying to get someone to communicate with me in their sleep. We made a bunch of dreamy sets to focus on, like I’m talking to them in their dreams. At some points I’m really serious, at other points I’m almost teasing them because I’m so over trying to get them to talk.[/su_quote]

Besides this release, Hatchie also announced a series of UK shows. Watch the video and check her itinerary below.

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5th May – Live at Leeds, LEEDS (DIY Neu Stage 1:30pm)

5th May – Sound City Festival, LIVERPOOL (Heavenly Stage 8:45pm)

6th May – Sounds from the Other City, SALFORD (Heavenly Stage 6:15pm)

7th May – Hare & Hound, BIRMINGHAM (supporting Anna Burch)

8th May – The Hug & Pint, GLASGOW (supporting Anna Burch)

10th May – Shacklewell Arms, LONDON (w/Death of Pop)

16th May – The Social, LONDON (w/Camille Christel)

17th-18th May – The Great Escape, BRIGHTON

19th May – Union Chapel, LONDON (Daylight Music afternoon session)

20th May – Hoxton Bar & Grill, LONDON

22nd May – Sebright Arms, LONDON (w/Dan Stock)