Soothsayer Orchestra Stream New Album The Last Black Flower in Full; Out Saturday
Eindhoven-based dark heavy experimentalist outfit Soothsayer Orchestra release their new album, The Last Black Flower, this Saturday, Feb. 4, through Lay Bare Recordings. At the behest of multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Pieter Hendriks, the album pulls together a sometimes-lush, sometimes-minimal, broadly-scoped approach to songwriting and arrangement, reminiscent on album opener “Celestial Virtues” of goth rock but by no means limited to that as it flirts with elements of dudely-swinging blues und drang on “The Bonediggers Blues” — one doesn’t know if the band or Lay Bare have considered alternate revenue streams, but there has to be a tv show Western or video game they could license it to — all foreboding in its later electric guitar ringouts. Neither of the first two cuts its really a tell for what’s to come, but the opener is also the longest of the 11 inclusions (immediate points) across the 41-minute release, which follow’s the band’s 2021 self-titled debut, and the Mark Lanegan-style vocal style Hendriks uses there suits the attention to detail that creates both the wash at the end of that track and the build that takes place across the next.
From there, Hendriks guides the listener skillfully through the meat of the record. “Galaxy Gazing for Supernovas” is ambient and seems to have fading sirens in the background that put one in mind of covid ambulances going by in a tense late Spring three years ago as the piano at the forefront and lyrics look outward with poetic and a purposeful sense of being half a song — it’s the shortest cut at 2:46; more than an interlude, but a definite pull away from the first two tracks — with a windy transition to “Kissed a Tyrant,” which brings an Ableton-style industrial march to a particularly Ulverian vocal melody, recalling that band’s “Shadows of the Sun” as it leaves space open in a mix that sounds like it was duly fretted-over only to fill it with layers of guitar and synth, ending up in a post-doom anti-genre moodiness that should appeal to fans of Crippled Black Phoenix but in reality is no more actually that than it is Ulver. The songs function deceptively quick thanks to an efficiency in creating an atmosphere, each one having a crux and persona of its own as it adds to the whole. Acoustic guitar at the outset of “The Gleaming of Beryl” contrasts against the beats of “Kissed a Tyrant,” and echo-stretch vocals atop Hendriks‘ (and someone else’s) gritty voice reminds of Steve Von Till‘s more recent solo work, but is on its own path, with strings and a closing sense of drift that carries into a soft breath of drone before fading to silence.
That puts “Black Dust” as the centerpiece of The Last Black Flower, building on the electronic vibe of “Kissed a Tyrant” with buried-under-rubble beats behind Hendriks‘ voice and various other ambient sounds surrounding in a not-empty-but-guitarless stretch that shifts into slow industrial doom, a few admirably sludgy screams arriving near the end not so much as a payoff as what you’ve found in this specific horror mine. Is that as far in as the record goes? Not a chance. “Everlasting Wings” brings back the acoustic guitar and a kind of muttered spoken word before the old-soul, rough-throat croon, piano and twanging rhythm mirrors the feel of “The Bonediggers Blues” back on side A while holding to an organic version of the march of “Black Dust” prior.
The work of artist Alexander Von Wieding in the swampy Larman Clamor comes to mind, but Soothsayer Orchestra is by and large slower, more willfully patient and atmospheric, starting from a different foundation in what used to be called neofolk but has morphed with time into ‘folk noir,’ and fair enough; can’t be ‘neo’ forever. In any case, to the credit of “Everlasting Wings,” it folds in some bassy wub-wubs for a suitably dystopian-future wreckage of an ending, and the bright electric guitar strum that starts the sub-three-minute “Destroy Humanity” is a pointed contradiction, snapping the listener back from the hypnosis that Hendriks (and company?) has cast, with an easy swing and horn-ish sounds like Peter Gabriel gone grim and later twists as the track melts and a giant bee seems to buzz it closed. Anybody remember pollinators? Those were the days.
“The Shadow,” which follows, is the first song over four minutes since “Kissed a Tyrant” at least a handful of lives ago, and brings arrangements of lush electric guitar, a meditative rhythm and layers of vocals arranged almost geometrically before breaking to sitar in its second half — something the groove prefaced earlier — and making its way into a plotted psychedelic flow around the chorus as the vocals return and give over to electronic noise before a more singer-songwriter spirit takes hold in “Black Tar and Silver,” not at all minimalist in reality, but subtle, with echoing lines of keys, backing vocals at its peak and guitar in there somewhere, but seemingly able to drop it all and rely just on the vocals and guitar at its core.
Structurally, it’s a song Hendriks could do anything with, and as the penultimate piece before the five-minute finale “November Moon,” with its memorable repetitions of the title and resumption of some of the march of prior cuts, its contemplative feel is well placed. The acoustic guitar holds over to the closer, and stays at the song’s foundation even as the vocals move into whispers and a bluesy line of electric guitar emerges, soon enough to howl at the moon in the song’s title, a more resolved crash of drums alongside in what’s clearly the big finish for The Last Black Flower as a whole, but stays somewhat understated in keeping with the spirit of the collection it wraps. Both of the last two songs represent the most recently recorded Soothsayer Orchestra material, exclusive to the digital edition of the record.
Throughout this second offering from Soothsayer Orchestra, the most prominent abiding element, apart perhaps from Hendriks‘ vocals, which provide an appreciated human aspect, is the obvious care that’s been put into crafting and arranging this material no matter how an individual song manifests it. As an auteur, Hendriks (also a former drummer of the more metalcore-minded Born From Pain) is able to create a sense of scope and rough-edged grace, creating momentum from one song to the next like an underwater current by which the individual immersed doesn’t even realize they’re being moved. That image, being drawn away from shore, is perhaps antithetical to some of the bleak plains-sprawl throughout — grey-sky overhead, vast and mostly barren sepia-toned lands below, a place where people used to be before nature took the land back; grass grown over the road — but maybe that’s what happens when an album creates an entire world instead of part of one. So much the better.
The Last Black Flower is streaming in its entirety below, followed by more info on the album from the PR wire.
Please enjoy:
Soothsayer Orchestra, The Last Black Flower album premiere
Pieter Hendricks on The Last Black Flower:
This album is musically a journey with heavy industrial fueled riffing and electronic vibes flowing into small fragile songs and darkblues rocking roadtrip horizon gazers. It is truelly a trip through the brain, as if reading a diary written by a person digging through the deepest vaults of their soul losing himself but also rediscovering themselves and griefing the loss of love and scared of losing control. A moodswing that paints the times we are living in perfectly. A very deep and personal record that people can relate to and find a piece of themselves in, hope and destruction mix with love and death. This is a record that had to be made to stay sane and build a bridge crawling out of darkness longing for light.
Buy The Last Black Flower on Vinyl: https://laybarerecordings.com/release/last-black-flower-by-soothsayer-orchestra-lbr042
The Last Black Flower the new album from Soothsayer Orchestra, the one-man project of Dutch experimentalist Pieter Hendriks, out today via Lay Bare Recordings.
Pieter is a musical solitudinarian who has enough gumption to leave the commonplace behind and only take with him what can enrich his music and performance. There is a certain weight of tragedy in his music. Pieters gravelly voice possesses an uneasy moodiness that reflects doom and despair, which immerses you in the dark side of life. Then, amidst this darkness Hendriks shifts his compositions to newfound hope, warm and flowing, creating a longing, yet bold mood.
In his brand-new studio, fittingly named The Dungeon, Hendriks crawled back into writing mode for new album The Last Black Flower and explored new territory, always looking for new influences. Elements of electronic industrial music and psychedelic vintage rock blend with the dark bluesy foundation on which Soothsayer Orchestra is firmly built. Lyrically and conceptually this album can be seen as a documentation of self-reflection that Hendriks went through during the often hopeless and haunting years of the pandemic. What came out of this is a beautiful and very honest album that lays bare one’s soul and takes the listener on a musically dynamic journey through Hendriks his mind.
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