Berlin’s modern music scene is [in]famous for punching a gritty, raw edge, thumping out an electro and techno heartbeat. It’s a canvas for live music, which unspools itself in the most unlikely of back streets and buildings, and you can get lost for days at a time in the city’s super-clubs. All of this makes it the perfect metropolis for bands to reinvigorate their sound. And that’s exactly what dream pop outfit Flower Drums have done. Now rematerialised from their Berlin rabbit hole, the four-piece set up home in Melbourne.
Invigorated by some time well spent in Berlin, dream pop duo Flower Drums come out swinging on their triumphant new single, Idle Time.
Idle Time is the first single to land since the band’s re-emergence and the first since their 2015 debut EP, 28 Mansions. With it, they’ve unveiled a new twist to their sound, but it’s still anchored in their distinctive wanderlust-inspired dreamy glow – the same one that garnered them that Best Pop Act nomination at the WA Music Awards, and saw them play support with the likes of #1 Dads, Client Liaison, Jungle Giants and Panama.
The track is laced with velvety, hazy vibes that are etched in nostalgia, finished off with an electro heartbeat and an indie underbelly. Guitar melodies are beautiful and intricate, carving precise, addictive loops that float into warm, dreamy swells, weaving a synth-driven soundscape.
But just when you think you’re settled there, it’s all stripped back into a fuzzy throb of instrumentals and echoey speech that tips its way into a meticulously plucked riff, which then buckets you back into balmy resonance. It’s the soundtrack you’d want to listen to if you ever found yourself swimming out into the ocean under a star-strewn night sky, unable to sleep.
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It’s probably not a huge surprise that Idle Time reflects Flower Drums’ time away: the track is about relying on social interactions at a time of displacement and transition. And it’s been created as “something that moved with pace of a city, like a restrained urgency,” as explained by singer, Leigh Craft.
Throughout the track, he pushes out hypnotic, intimate vocals, producing lyrics that come contemplative and relatable – the kind that’ll make you wonder when they managed to crawl inside your brain and steal your thoughts…think: “I don’t want to speak for someone else/work for someone else, think about my health.”
Perth just keeps on spitting out incredible bands and all like it’s no big deal. We’re pretty excited for what lies next for Flower Drums.
Idle Time by Flower Drums is out now.
