Flowers And Sea Creatures
- Location: Montreal,
- Website:
- Bio: 'What colour is your music?' we asked lead singer Graham Baxter of new Canadian alt-electronica duo, Flowers and Sea Creatures. 'Turquoise and charcoal,' he says. 'What does it sound like ... (more)
- Bio: 'What colour is your music?' we asked lead singer Graham Baxter of new Canadian alt-electronica duo, Flowers and Sea Creatures. 'Turquoise and charcoal,' he says. 'What does it sound like?' 'Like Kraftwerk collaborating with Crosby, Stills and Nash,' says the duo's new label boss, Ben Watt, with a flourish.
Flowers and Sea Creatures hail from Montreal and release their debut EP 'Test Pressing' on September 20 on Watt's Buzzin' Fly. The EP showcases four tracks. Baxter's soaring impressionistic vocals and stacked harmonies ride over partner Kosta Megalos's fuzzy autumnal chords. The crisp future-disco beats come courtesy of the EP's co-producers The Revenge (on 'At Night') and Ewan Pearson (on 'International'). The results, when added to the duo's own self-produced closing cut 'Sonic', is alternative deep danceable Balearica at its finest.
Baxter was born in Belfast where he played the cornet in church. Megalos was born in Athens, the son of an itinerant Greek musician. The two gravitated to Montreal where they met and started writing together and playing in local bars. In search of a label, Baxter opened a CD by Buzzin' Fly boss Ben Watt's former band Everything But The Girl, and a reply-card for Buzzin' Fly tumbled out. He emailed some music. Six weeks later, dispirited after no reply, he realised Watt had actually answered within 48 hours and the reply was sitting in his spam folder.
'They just sent instrumental music at first,' says Watt, picking up the story. 'But it was so moody and raw. I loved it. I asked, more in hope that anything else, if anyone in the band could sing, as I thought the tracks would take songs very well. Little did I expect a singer of the calibre of Graham to emerge. Everyone who has heard him has been knocked sideways. His solo voice and his use of background vocals seem both ancient and modern.'
'I approached producers who I thought would get the duo straight off,' he continues. 'I wanted tracks to be built from the bottom up with sympathetic minds at work, capturing both the spontaneity of a duo in its infancy, and the guiding hand of experience. Ewan and The Revenge responded immediately. Graham and Kosta were inspired. It was really productive. I just stood back and let it happen.'
Asked about their inspirations, Baxter namechecks the understated vocals of jazz trumpeter Chet Baker and Kubrick's film version of Anthony's Burgess' 'A Clockwork Orange', and says his lyrics begin with vivid images and are 'open to interpretation'. Kosta lists Giorgio Moroder, early 80's sonic experimentalists The Art Of Noise and St Vincent's Annie Clark.
Flowers and Sea Creatures' 'Test Pressing' EP is out on Sep 20 on download and limited edition 12 inch vinyl. (less)
