Squirrel Flower - Planet EP Review
Sob, sip wine and send a love-lack signal to the outer space with Squirrel Flower on her new ‘Planet’ EP.
American musician Ella Williams, releasing under a made up in childhood name, Squirrel Flower, has created another (last album was called ‘Planet (I)) celestial body to host her most humane and vulnerable side when facing the hurricane of love. We’re more than welcome to invade the ‘Planet’ EP.
The gate to the ‘Planet’ is a hauntingly beautiful composition, ‘open wound’, build on a heart-piercing lyrical metaphor. The surface’s sliced, the blood is flowing out so we’ll take any kind of cover against it. A person, a feeling or a simple good time. Just before our souls will leak on the floor. On ‘your love is disaster’ Squirrel Flower almost entirely strips herself from any illusions. There’s a sense of accepting the unfulfilling feeling and quiet whisper of desperation for affections, which is so humane, as she softly sings ‘Take me dancing, touch my skin and hold me/ Anything, anything to feel close again’.
Following the great reception of her cover of Caroline Polachek‘s So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’, Squirrel Flower took on Björk’s ‘Homogenic’ masterpiece on rekindling an old flame after lovers’ separation, ‘Unravel’. Compering to the original, it’s a play of more toned-down theatrics. Instead of hitting you hard in the head with a weapon made of hope, Squirrel Flower slowly creeps into our subconscious with humming, teary vocals hidden behind a veil woven of reverb. ‘long day is done’ introduces the gentlest of instrumental, like the seaside she’s painting for us in the lyrics, the song comforts like a breezy walk on the sand with a setting sun by our side. Ethereal.
‘sitting in traffic’ sounds like an echo chamber of inner reflections, reminding sightly of Mazzy Star and This Mortal Coin melancholia. ‘ruby at dawn’ could be a devoted lover of Bat For Lashes ‘Laura’. It invites us in with a slow-burning organ progression shadowed by a distorted drum beat. Though, it’s the lyrics where Squirrel Flower truly shines, ‘I wore her shirt/She wore my shoes/I didn't think I'd be the one’ she'd choose’. Sometimes the magic lives in between the lines and in the simplest of words. ‘live wire’ is a declaration of love so wickedly strong that you’re willing to abandon everything once dear to you, only to be with the person who’s now the world for you. The vocals go from cry to a tamed shout. In all its despair and madness, it’s a dazzling standout and so fitting finale of the album.
This time Squirrel Flower built a self-destructive planet that’s not meant to survive yet surprisingly keeps on breathing and sending a signal to outer space with their lover’s name. There’s no response. Even though the message becomes sometimes a bit blurry and repetitive, we’d still respond immediately.