If you’re looking for something punchy, neoclassical, and semi-abstract, and leaning toward strong musical flavours, you can’t go wrong with innovative duo BEAU BOWEN and their Flame of Love.
If you enjoy the psychedelic nature of Tame Impala, perhaps with some of the supernatural essence of Björk — and the mechanical proficiency of Mangoists Pond — you’ll be a little closer to embracing the beauty and variety of the BEAU BOWEN sound, performed by experimental rockers DRU & KAY ROSE.
These auteurockers have even created a nifty visual package that runs for over 40 minutes and synchronously delivers a multi-dimensional myriorama during a live show that generates perceptions of movement and depth.
the singing enchantress comes into focus like the Bride of Chucky on dangerous psychopharmaceuticals…
We had a listen to the new album:
The roiling atmosfear of opener “Anodyne Robots” does nothing to steady a listener’s nerves. It’s as if Marilyn Manson in his Spooky Kids days collaborated with 1993 Björk and they generated a chronologically out-of-place sound under a fiery, necromantic sky.
That the singing enchantress (Dru) comes into focus like the Bride of Chucky on dangerous psychopharmaceuticals doesn’t make this any more ordinary. In fact, quite the opposite: this song will leave you in a state of emotional exhaustion. In the number, perhaps written about melodyne robot overlords coming to fry our weak minds (for all we know), ghostly guitars (Kay) reach inside the hallucinatory nightmare, wobbly chords turn creepy, while unusual sound patterns become multi-tentacled moonage monsters from deep within the recesses of Doctor Morbius’s unhealthy mind.
Actually, Bebe and Louis Barron’s electronic tonalities are saluted in “Bubble Tea” too, before the number settles into a blocky beat with interpolated yelps, whelps, and shivering wails. It’s a bit Skrillex 2010 with a Dez Dickerson-style guitar that fits effortlessly into Dru’s high-minded expressionism.
The title number “Flame of Love” is a fleeting clip, arriving with the summery breeze of Bowie-esque guitars, though it turns into a rubaboo of wrinkles and frizz, then introduces the cartilaginous bounce of “Intergalactic Enquiries”. This track has a set of owl voices supported by gelatinous accompaniments. The song is approximately a duet, even though the to-and-fro of voices is barely recognizable under sail-planing textures, ballooning ideas and the fluctuating expectations of any careful listener. If you had to compare this to something (and that’s no straightforward task), we could take pleasure in comparing it to the funky conceptual confusion and sheer experimentalism of OutKast in their Speakerboxxx days.
“The Man With Laser Hands” is a favorite track and, in all likelihood, the blockbuster on the album and will be especially rewarding for anyone in search of nostalgic gemstone rock with flowery and quirky guitar touches (for example, retired Prince fans, in all probability, will go for this!) The number sprouts rhythms like shots of jelly-fungus on a decaying limb, and it produces the darkest, lowest, and most oily baritones since Kevin Ayers accidentally ingested a jerrycan of axle-grease before climbing onto stage (he never did, but it’s the general idea that counts!) And, yes, the number has Steve Hillage style guitars too, so it wouldn’t seem out of place on Bananamour.
“Rhapsody Of A Second Life” (live video shared below) channels Mendelssohn, Orff, and a sense of futuristic nostalgia. It’s Aerial level Kate Bush meets John, I’m Only Dancing Bowie in a shoebox filled with rickracks, sequins, and embroidered honeysuckles. And “Electric Tiger” features ghostless overtones and vibrant rhythms to bridge, magnificently, the gap between progressive rock, arty jazz, and glitchy, retroactive glam.
Together, Dru & Kay have invented a new genre: artsyche musiclecticism! In other words, this is surreal, interdimensional, and mellifluent. Flame of Love is an album that uses earth instruments, analog gear, moldboard beats, fuzzy solos, greasy vocals, and rag aesthetics to deliver futurism & nostalgia in equal measure.
File alongside: The Spooky Kids, St. Vincent
Words: @neilmach 2021 ©
Link: https://www.beaubowen.com/
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