Florist – Jellyfish
New York minimalist folk quartet Florist release “Jellyfish,” the final single from their anticipated new album Jellywish, out this Friday, April 4th on Double Double Whammy.
Of the song, band leader Emily Sprague says “‘Jellyfish’ is presented as an upbeat song with a darker undertone of frantically wondering how doomed we really are, what our lifetimes may bring, and what we can do about it. It marvels at the mysteries of our world while also mourning the destruction of so much of it by the hands of humans. ‘Jellyfish’ draws a connecting line between our very minds and the natural world, attempting to establish an important theme of this song and record which is: rethinking what is normalized so we can be more symbiotic with each other and the Earth. The song ends its musing with a reminder to the listener of our power centers, that we are deserving of happiness and love: ‘destroy the feeling you are not enough’. This is mirroring an earlier lyric: ‘destroy everything on earth’, which is an observation of how things seem to be, but shouldn’t have to be, and must be challenged.”
Jellywish is an exercise in multidimensional world building. The album’s panoramic cover art, which looks like something out of a Henry Darger volume, wraps the music in a collage of color that presents as science fiction-adjacent, hinting at something mysterious, fantastical, and mythological. Inside the album’s jacket, however, are tender and catchy sonic meditations on life’s most knotty subjects: life, death, earth, reality, relationships, joy, and pain. Taken together, Florist offers an acute sense of the band at this moment, one that worries about the world and its place in it. In contrast, it also presents an alternative to the doldrums of day-to-day life, and the necessary suggestion that very different things may be true at the same time.
Florist is going on a North American tour in support of Jellywish next month, heading to Europe in June and playing End of the Road Festival in England at the end of August.
US Tour Dates:
5/05 – Philadelphia, PA @ Johnny Brenda’s
5/06 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
5/07 – Raleigh, NC @ Kings
5/08 – Asheville, NC @ AyurPrana Listening Room
5/09 – Nashville, TN @ The Blue Room at Third Man Records
5/10 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl
5/12 – Dallas, TX @ Sons of Hermann Hall
5/13 – Austin, TX @ Antone’s
5/15 – Phoenix, AZ @ Valley Bar
5/16 – Los Angeles, CA @ Lodge Room
5/17 – San Francisco, CA @ Bottom of the Hill
5/19 – Seattle, WA @ Madame Lou’s
5/20 – Portland, OR @ Polaris Hall
5/21 – Boise, ID @ Shrine Basement
5/23 – Denver, CO @ Meow Wolf
5/24 – Omaha, NE @ Reverb Lounge
5/25 – Chicago, IL @ Old Town School of Folk Music
5/26 – Indianapolis, IN @ Turntable
5/27 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Bell’s Eccentric Cafe
5/28 – Toronto, ON @ Longboat Hall
5/29 – Montreal, QC @ La Sala Rossa
5/30 – Boston, MA @ Brighton Music Hall
5/31 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom
EU Tour Dates:
6/07 – Humble, DK @ Beats
6/08 – Copenhagen, DK @ Loppen
6/10 – Aarhus, DK @ Voxhall
6/11 – Oslo, NO @ Blå
6/12 – Stavanger, NO @ Folken
6/13 – Bergen, NO @ Landmark
6/15 – Amsterdam, NL @ Olt Vondelpark
6/16 – London, UK @ Union Chapel
6/17 – Brighton, UK @ Komedia
6/18 – Cardiff, UK @ Clwb Ifor Bach
6/19 – York, UK @ Crescent
6/20 – Liverpool, UK @ District
6/21 – Dublin, IE @ Whelans
6/22 – Belfast, NI @ Empire Music Hall
6/25 – Galway, IE @ Róisín Dubh
6/26 – Kilkenny, IE @ Cleere’s
6/27 – Tralee, IE – Nonfaction
6/28 – Cork, IE – Live At St. Luke’s
6/29 – Ballydehob, IE – Levi’s Corner House
8/29 – Dorset, UK – End of the Road Festival
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