During the great internet download free for all of the mid to late noughties, I occasionally obtained rogue MP3s that I would review at my leisure then try to locate the artist. Often they would have been uploaded by some fan who hadn’t tagged the file correctly or they were really obscure acts that nobody seemed to know. Frequently I forgot to make a note of where I got the file from or find it again.
Two such files were ones which appeared to have had the artist tagged as Flowing Tears and Withered Flowers. They were dark. Euro Goth with poorly pronounced English and a wistfully moribund tone. Sounded great. Sadly, in those days, the internet was relatively still in its infancy which meant that a lot of the knowledge out there today was still in people’s heads and not accessible via the likes of Wikipedia or Stegzy’s Music Project.
Of course, the reason I couldn’t find anything was partially because the files turned out to be unreleased songs by the band who later became Flowing Tears (dropping the Withered Flowers suffix). A further hurdle was that for some reason many music channels in the UK looked unfavourably on continental European bands and often searches on Spotify, Google Play, Apple Music (or iTunes as it was then) and the like resulted in nothing. Which is partially why many people turned to piracy.
Recently though, it has got better. Apple Music is a lot better than it was way back when, and even Google/Youtube has improved. As a result, and partially why the Music Project was put on its second hiatus, I was able to add two Flowing Tears albums, and many other new artists and albums, to my Apple Music library.
Jade is the first release for the band under the Flowing Tears name and was released in 2000. At this point the band had changed its line up to feature Stefanie Duchêne as its lead singer replacing guitarist Manfred Bersin’s lead vocals, assumidly so he could go back to playing his guitar.
The familiar sounds created by the band in their release, Swansongs (released under their original name) are evident in Jade if not more evolved. Indeed, Jade seems like a natural shift towards what sound the band became. Its still never going to be a mainstream sound in the UK and its likely that few people in the UK or US have even heard of the band, but if you like the sounds of bands like Scream Silence or Nightwish, I suggest you give Flowing Tears a go, if you haven’t done so already. You might be similarly enamoured.
More information see: Amazon or Apple Music
There are as many compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock entitled Into Temptation as there are compilations claiming to be the best of gothic rock. Confusing really as this isn’t really what I’d call Gothic Rock, it’s what I’d call Scandinavian symphonic rock fronted by tight-fitting low cleavaged black catsuit wearing busty sirens in a wind tunnel aimed at appealing to frustrated teenage males with big hair and middle-aged balding forty-somethings trying to recapture their lost youth.
David Lynch’s Lost Highway is an often disregarded cinematic masterpiece. Dark, brooding and just plain fucking weird. It also happens to be right at the top of my top ten favourite films list. For me it’s not the twisted script and imagery that makes the film so enjoyable, nor is it the years of enjoyable debate I’ve had with others trying to interpret its meaning. For me, the cherry on the top of the enjoyability of the film is its soundtrack. Upon which a, then relatively,
Angry shouty metal from the noughties.
Arcana – Edenbridge
A Metal Tribute to Abba – Various Artists
Stegzy's Music Project 