2021’s collaboration with The Body for the Leaving None but Birds album touched on folk traditions, and with A Chaos of Flowers, Big|Brave craft deeply atmospheric drone and squall soundscapes set to poems by female poets including Emily Dickenson, Esther Propel Shaw, Emily Pauline Johnson, which resonate with vocalist Robin Wattie. The combination of poetry and music has long been a source of inspiration for many artist over the years. And it proves to be an inspired vision for Big|Brave as they have created an immersive, absorbing experience, which plunges deep into themes of insanity, death, devastating loss, and nature.
The opener ‘I Felt A Funeral’ is a breath-taking, minimalistic, haunting slow waltz. The Emily Dickenson poem is arranged and interpreted expertly to plunge you deep in its themes of losing one’s sense of self and sanity. From the opening disorientated drone to Robin’s masterly, barely eligible vocals where her intake of breath between the words is subtly engaging. It’s a stunning piece of work. Chilling, and loaded with feeling. The accompanying video shot in black and white in a bare room, while Robin fades in and out of focus in varying shades of dark and light, completes this remarkable piece.
The album’s alluring qualities doesn’t stop here as across the whole album there are numerous amounts of beguiling soundscapes. The band blend in the quiet/loud formula in so many subtle ways – take for example the cymbal play at the end of ‘Chanson Pour Mon’ and ‘Canon’ which raises the engrossing atmospheres in a simple but effective way. The trio of Robin Wattie, guitarist Matthieu Ball, drummer Tasty Hudson, are joined by guest guitarists Marisa Anderson, Tasha Dorji and saxophonist Patrick Shiroishi for additional layering. The band’s own description of their sound as ‘minimal, cathartic, pummelling’ is a faultless summing up.
On the other end of the spectrum, the amps are in full use to set in motion wonderful guitar fuzz for ‘Not Speaking of the Ways.’ With a repetitive droney riff not too far away from PJ Harvey’s ‘To bring you my love’s’ main motif, accompanied with (once again) astutely applied cymbals, is another crushing highlight. Some of the guitar tones on ‘Theft’ even recall shades of Neil Young’s ragged, controlled guitar on the Jim Jamursh directed Dead Man film soundtrack. The guitar weaves and glides between Robin’s vocals whose performance across the whole album is wonderfully understated, which peels slow burning mesmerisation. Her voice is a soulful croon, set against the thick dense guitar drone on ‘Quotidian Solemnity.’ While ‘Moonset’ is a fitting sublime album closer expanding finger picking beginnings to all-absorbing crescendo.
As with most music pushing the envelope out, it can be a challenging and weighty listen – ‘Chanson Pour Mon’ delves into a jazzy guitar thrang – and for some it may be too much. But. for those who love Chelsea Wolfe, Lingua Ignota, and others who are taking heavy music outwards, beyond boundaries, for looking deeper inside oneself; this is an essential listen. So, apply the headphones, allow yourself the time and space to close in and wrap yourself around A Chaos of Flowers for a journey deep into your head, heart, and soul, and be moved.