https://www.high-endrolex.com/18

Friday Full-Length: Baby Woodrose, Baby Woodrose


Take a seat in Dr. Lorenzo‘s office for a bit of psychedelic self-care. Danish garage-psych mavens Baby Woodrose released their self-titled long-player in 2009 through Bad Afro Records. Still fronted by founding vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Uffe “Lorenzo Woodrose” Lorenzen after shifts in their lineup, the band operated in the studio as Lorenzen and guitarist/bassist/backing vocalist Adam Olsson, and after returning to Bad Afro for 2007’s Chasing Rainbows following the release of 2006’s Love Comes Down on Playground Music Scandinavia in a flirtation with broader commercial reach, the inward-looking declaration of Baby Woodrose as a self-titled long-player seemed to suit the band just fine. I really don’t have a bad word to say about the band’s catalog on the whole, no matter who’s involved, but as Lorenzen‘s (multicolor, swirling) vision became the basis for their sound and his songwriting matured to the sharp, no nonsense point one finds it here, it was obvious what were the essential elements at play in construction.

And songwriting is where it’s at for Baby Woodrose. Produced by Lorenzen and Johan Lei Gellett, the album comprises 12 tracks across 37 minutes. The longest individual cut is the finale, “Secret of the Twisted Flower” at 5:32, but nothing else touches four minutes, and the sharp, Stooges-style proto-punk of “Take It” and “No Mas” meshes brilliantly with the more kaleidoscopic mindsets of “Laughing Stock,” buzzing opener “Fortune Teller” — a telltale “yeah alright!” to get things rolling early — and the sweeter strums of the duly ’60s-tinged “Open up Your Heart.” The subtle variations in arrangement — a tambourine here, backing vocals there, a change in effects — and Baby Woodrose is/are able to affect turns from psychedelia through raw heavy rock, keeping a classic air about them all the while even as the sound fleshes out in a fashion decidedly modern. Neither are they retro, at least in terms of the ‘vintage heavy’ movement that was beginning to take hold elsewhere in Scandinavia or in Germany at the time. Formed in 2001 and with four studio LPs and a covers collection under their belt by the time they got to 2009, Baby Woodrose always operated separate from the rest of all that, and they still do. The self-titled is precisely what it says it is — the band staking their claim on who they are in terms of aesthetic and approach, and refusing to be anything but what Lorenzen wants them to be.

Tone has never been an issue for Baby Woodrose, from ’01’s landmark Blows Your Mind! onward, and in songs like “Hollow Grove” and the presumed side A capper “Countdown to Breakdown,” each guitar strum and baby woodrose self titledeach line of bass seem to hold purpose in serving the song as a whole, as much thoughtful as they are obvious, like some never-seen tree discovered in middle of a public park of pop songcraft. The hooks of “Emily” and “Laughing Stock” arrive back to back ahead of “Countdown to Breakdown” and though they’re united by the basic underlying structure, the two songs are completely different in mood, the former somewhat wistful in a poised regret and the latter defiant in lyric and fuzz alike, the position of Lorenzen‘s vocals and the effects thereupon enhancing the notion of a transition from one atmosphere to another. The pinging melodies of “Countdown to Breakdown” likewise represent another place-to-place movement, but the theme of the song being mental collapse, the psychedelia is almost a disguise the lyrics wear to get away from themselves. Not gonna say I don’t get it.

Perhaps, then, “Changes Everywhere” is all the more appropriately placed at the start of side B, but in any case, it emphasizes another aspect of Lorenzen‘s work that has held true throughout his career, in Baby Woodrose as well as the prior On Trial, and subsequent side-projects like Dragontears and Spids Nøgenhat as well as his recent solo work, and that is his ability to make a short song a journey. As barebones as some of these tracks can seem, they’re meticulous, purposeful and presented with a care that is rare in or out of psychedelic heavy rock. To wit, the build of the last three tracks on Baby Woodrose, with the acoustic-led pair of “Mikita” and “Scorpio” following the brash “No Mas” and leading into the spacious, drifting and experimental-feeling “Secret of the Twisted Flower” to close, hypnotic but still aware of the drumming taking place in the recesses of the mix. Whether it’s there or earlier in “Hollow Grove,” “Fortune Teller” or “Emily” there’s a sense of storytelling that comes through without a direct narrative across the album as a whole, and each piece becomes habitable even as the procession from one to the next is quick and sometimes (again, purposefully) blindsiding.

The post-Playground Music era of Baby Woodrose had begun two years earlier, true, but I tend to think of the self-titled as a standout moment — not the least for being self-titled — that began a more mature stage for Lorenzen‘s take. 2011’s Mindblowing Seeds and Disconnected Flowers (review here) looked back on demos and lost tracks from the period of the debut, but 2012’s Third Eye Surgery (review here) pushed engagingly forward on the ideas presented across Baby Woodrose, and though it would be four years before the band would turn around with 2016’s Freedom (review here), that record and the pair of solo offerings Lorenzen has since issued under his own name and in his own language, 2017’s Galmandsværk (review here) and 2019’s Triprapport (review here), continued to progress in terms of scope and confidence, the solo albums taken on an ethereal singer-songwriter feel that owes as much to rock as acid folk and is entirely Lorenzen‘s own.

Freedom was the last Baby Woodrose album, and four years matches the longest stretch the band has had between LPs. My understanding is Lorenzen has a third solo offering in the works for later this year — though of course it may meet with some delay as so much has — but whether and whenever another record shows up, there’s little doubt it will further the band’s progression of being simultaneously far out and dug in as only Baby Woodrose can be.

As always, I hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.

I wrote the above yesterday, and yesterday, I needed that bit of psychedelic self-care. The early part of the day sucked. It was awful. I was pissed off, the morning was a pain in the ass, everything, terrible. I took half a xanax and watched that Enslaved stream and that helped. The kid/puppy combo though has been pretty brutal this week.

Just got off the phone with a hospital coordinator in Allentown, PA, trying to put my father in a rehab center after his July 3 fall. He apparently still needs help from two people to stand up and is confused and uncooperative which, having grown up as his son, sounds about right to me.

They want a legal guardian for him. That’s gonna end up being me, I know it. Not a job I want, but there it is.

He has no assets to speak of or that I know of — a car. Doesn’t own a home, signed away his half of any of my mother’s assets 25 years ago, and then did so again 15 years ago, so that’s pretty much settled despite the fact that they’ve never divorced. That I would be 38 years old dealing with this shit? Not something I saw coming. Probably should have.

So it’s been a week.

I await a call from a financial coordinator at a rehab facility. Phone tag. I look forward to having a conversation, feeling totally overwhelmed and sad, and then going back to the rest of my life.

That Enslaved stream though, right?

No Gimme show again this week. I think next week? They’ve been doing a bunch of artist sit-ins, and I was the one who pulled the plug on the last episode — just didn’t have it in me to do one more thing — so yeah. I’ll make a playlist over the weekend and try to get some voice tracks down. You don’t care. It’s fine. I’m not out here trying to pretend I’m entitled to anyone’s time. I just need to say these things.

Moving on.

In especially cruel moments, life shows you the aspirations and accomplishments of those braver than you. The things people do. I’m trying to teach the puppy to fetch a tennis ball. Things are pretty mundane these days. I try to write as much as I can. Nothing new there.

Great and safe weekend. Think I’ll go for a run.

FRM.

The Obelisk Forum

The Obelisk Radio

The Obelisk merch

 

 

Tags: , , , , ,

Leave a Reply