Blue Chemise - Flower Studies

Perfect timing - a new Blue Chemise album arrives at exactly the same time a (much-appreciated) repress for their last album turns up at our door. Anyone not familiar with Daughters of Time should take this opportunity to correct their oversight right now - a beautiful series of time-drained vignettes that, despite their condensed nature, seem to make whatever room they're played in bigger. Music seemingly plugged into some bigger truth, or at least aiming for a gentle profundity. A true modern classic from the contemporary Australian underground (and a bit of a forebear for a lot of the great music that's followed from down that way the last few years). If you already know that record you'll be as excited as i am for Flower Studies. The eight pieces - or etudes as the press release has it - see Mark Gomes responding to the floral studies of 19th century French photographer, Adolphe Braun. Given the subject matter and what we know of the overall Blue Chemise aesthetic, the results are right on the money. Gentle, intimate, minimal piano-based arrangements which float and cascade with elegance and a haunting nostalgia. If Daughters of Time felt spectral, then Flower Studies is shimmering and tinged with sadness. Satie seems the obvious reference but there’s something else happening here. Texturally they're not the same, but there's a similar feeling evoked here as on Yoran's Montparnasse. Gomes' work is much clearer in fidelity, but there's an eerie, elegiac quality that hides behind his compositions that echoes Yoran's mystery ambience.