Flowers & Sea Creatures have previously released on both Compost and Buzzin' Fly but Afternoon & Afterhours is their debut release on My Favorite Robot.
Afternoon & Afterhours - Flowers & Sea Creatures
It is a release that boasts the kind of sophistication you would expect from alumni of such labels. The EP opens with The Very Next Day, which features Wrong Jeremy, and combines them with a throbbing, cinematic groove. The track packs plenty of menace - an alienated soundtrack that lets those vocals provide an additional lens of humanity, but it is the low rumble of the bass and percussion that provide much of the atmosphere. So Far The Star is similarly threatening, with cold and metallic music combined with a sparse vocal and some dark, distorted bass.
Alternate Endings is less busy and represents the start of the stronger half of this release - an ambient, beat-free piece that makes much of gently strummed guitars and vocals enveloped in echo. The EP's closing track, Citadel is a nine-and-a-half-minute long epic piece that takes the maudlin feel of much of that which it follows but expands into epic proportions. It is somewhere between the beat-led sound of the opening half of this EP and the minimal sound of Alternate Endings - shuffling rhythms provide a momentum that sees the introduction of rough synthetic melodies and ultimately some Latin guitar. It's an epic conclusion to a heartfelt EP.
Afternoon & Afterhours is out through My Favorite Robot on 24 February. Preview via Soundcloud below: