Floom Sounds: Gardenia Devils

Once a month we’ll be digging deep into the record crates of one of our more musically geeky contributors to find some (tenuously) flower-related aural gems for your listening pleasure – provided they’re on Spotify of course. Let’s see how it goes, hey?

I don’t know about where you are but currently I’m sitting in 32 degrees Celsius of pure Berlin sunshine – way too hot for a pasty Northerner like me. One good thing about that oppressive sort of heat though is that it always leads me to the jazzier end of my record collection. There’s something about the way jazz can be so languorous and so vibrant (even violent), in the same way that the hottest weather can be.

Here then are five tenuously flower-themed jazz tracks. Kicking off with one of the smoothest cuts from the legendary ‘Trane, who should hopefully need no introduction as he eases us into things. Might as well follow that up with another saxophonist, the considerably less well-known Barney Wilen. His 1972 album Moshi is an underheard, exuberant masterpiece that’ll have you wiggling your hips and stroking your chin in equal measure (you’re probably relieved to hear that the track here is more about the hip-wiggling than the chin-stroking). Reissued recently by the brilliant Souffle Continu Records by the way, who were also responsible for that great Maison Rose record in the last edition of Floom Sounds.

Next up ladies and gentleman we have Mr. Billy Martin on the drums! Incredible jazz drummer from the NYC Brazilian scene. He made some real good stuff with another drumming great, Bob Moses – this though is from one of his solo records and depending on your penchant for jazz drum solos you’re gonna find it either interminable or transcendent. It’s good to try new things! A lil curveball choice for the penultimate track comes from Healing Force Project, who fuse their deep, experimental techno to some mad free-jazz on this deep cut that only just qualifies due to being lifted from a record titled Entheogenic Spore (look it up). Finally, the French trumpeter Jac Berrocal takes things down a decidedly more smoky, sinister (and dare I say sexy) path as we bid farewell.

Take a listen to the playlist and check out the new tracks below. Also remember to subscribe and listen to the full playlist here!