by Chris Polley (@qhrizpolley)
“I could read your eyes for the rest of my life” sings Emily Sprague on “Levitate,” the devastatingly beautiful opening track to Florist’s fifth Double Double Whammy LP Jellywish. Sprague sings atop acoustic guitar plucking before a delicate yet resounding piano flutter hits like a gentle avalanche, coming and going in an instant.
As this forced simile implies, it leaves a tremendous impact with a light touch, acting as both thesis statement and torch-bearer for the simple, effective slate of songs to follow. This is a zenith achievement for the quartet released at a time when so little makes sense or feels explainable to the average person with a heart. This band has nevertheless provided something so pure and sweet, something so full of concurrent melancholy and hope, that it’s hard to call it anything other than greatly needed.
When the full band rolls in on “Have Heaven,” it’s part-release, part-restraint—an ultimate balancing act suggesting a form of folk-rock less interested in political protest or solitary rumination than spiritual confession and existential dread. A flute wriggles its way into the second verse, first played forward and then looped backward, deep in the mix of tom hits and strummed chords, adding an air of mystery and unsettling amorphousness to what could otherwise come across as trite or overly straightforward. Like the best purveyors of softness and hushed vocals throughout pop history, Sprague’s songwriting demands nearly as much vulnerability from the listener as she does from herself.
The players she has backing her up on the proceedings are no slouches either. Rick Spataro and Jonnie Baker share bass, guitar, keyboard, and synth duties throughout the record, punching through the mix with some effervescent country guitar and effects work on “This Was a Gift,” plus Spataro’s pleasant baritone backing vocals that help buoy Sprague’s lilting lead on penultimate track “Our Hearts in a Room.” In addition, while sparse, when an organ sustain trails to Felix Walworth’s thoughtful, minimalist drumming smack dab in the middle of “All the Same Light,” it creates the kind of headphone moment that invites multiple close listens, whether it be twilight tinkering on the computer as the rest of your family sleeps or a surreptitious office mindfulness break when no one’s watching at work.
At the center of it all, though, is Sprague’s singular voice—both literally and figuratively. “Sparkle Song” in particular is a perfect nexus of all that has made Florist an ever-rising mainstay over the years. With the kind of lyrical cleverness that avoids obvious rhymes in favor of more meaningful free-verse couplets plus an interplay of melodies both morose and tender that can make even the toughest skin bubble with goosebumps, it’s difficult to overstate just how poignant and gripping she’s become as both a songwriter and performer. The more electric-leaning, lo-fi debut EP We Have Been This Way Forever from 2013 was arguably more playful and rollicking, but it—like its first few follow-ups—was largely just a taste of what was to come. And to come so far in just over a decade while staying true to her brand of carefully considered but still raw and open-hearted folk-pop isn’t just impressive; it’s masterful.
“I think music has this beautiful ability to present people with feelings and ideas—it’s like this transmission that you can’t exactly do with words,” Sprague said to Under the Radar shortly after Jellywish’s release. “I have always been dedicated to and want to keep focusing on that magic quality, so that we can become more in touch with each other and ourselves.” This sentiment resonates throughout the album, but especially in the magnetic closer “Gloom Designs.” Bolstered by subtle SFX of waves crashing and electronic skitters, she sings, “Honestly, I’m getting kind of sick of talking about this,” referring to losing her mom at too young of an age to call it “expected” but perhaps too old of an age to call it “unfathomable.” Eight years out from the spark of her grief, while nearly any listener may be anywhere and everywhere on their own journey, it reveals a potential message of the surface-level cute wordplay emblazoned in the album’s title: like a jellyfish, whose life-cycle is known for its complex web of sexual and asexual stages, we may all just be wishing this whole thing called existence made some kind of sense. It doesn’t, of course, but, equally inexplicably, music does.