It is not easy to create an album according to the principle “to dance and to the rosary” so that it does not sound in bad taste, and the listener’s attitude to the material is not indulgent. Braids’ Flourish//Perish is none of those things. It is a very thoughtful and mature material, full of nuances and creative fantasy, and communing with it is pure pleasure.
Braids is the angelic voice of Raphaelle Standell-Preston, the outstanding drums of Austin Tufts and multi-instrumentalist Taylor Smith, and the home of these talents is the Canadian Calgary. Initially, the band was a quartet, but in 2012 keyboardist Katie Lee left the band and it was the three-member line-up that released the album Flourish//Perish. Some believe that with Lee’s departure, the band’s musical profile has changed. Released in 2011, the debut album of Native Speaker sounds more dream pop, while the second Flourish//Perish is a kaleidoscope of impressions richer in electronics. It’s hard for me to judge whether the change is really the result of a narrowing of the composition or whether it is a simple evolution that occurs naturally in the creative process. For the listener, it probably does not matter much, because as you know, it is not the quantity but the quality that counts, and the quality is in this case audible with the naked ear.
Particularly noteworthy is the vocalist Raphaelle Standell-Preston, who sings with the lightness of a bird, it is hard to believe how easily it nests in the head. He directly approaches the listener, invites him to his intimate world. The album itself Flourish//Perish is, simply put, beautiful melodies mostly deeply immersed in intense electronic sauce. Mostly, not entirely, because I also find simple, even ethereal harmonies here. Braids draw me into their strange but extremely brilliant world. This album is difficult to unequivocally opinion, because it is a constantly surprising material, with each subsequent listening something different. Sometimes I focus on the octaves of Standell-Preston’s voice, another time I stamp my foot to broken rhythms, then again I am amazed by the cleverness and imagination of the whole, which in turn introduces a subtle nostalgia.
I think Flourish//Perish has a message. That message is balance. The title itself makes us wonder and makes us think about transience. Everything that lives also dies, everything that is vital disintegrates and perishes? I do not know if this was the intention of the musicians or maybe it is verbal nonchalance, but the material created by them makes me cultivate distance while indulging in melancholy. Of course, all in healthy quantities.