GONE [10''|DIGITAL]
On Veronika Vlková's painting for Floex' new EP “Gone”, the mountain ghosts are watching the flood from the mountain tops which stick out of water. In his latest work Floex is trying to express the melancholic mood of the last days of stability and harmony. While “Gone” thematizes instability expressed by the Apocalypse in a “macroscopic sense”, and musically for Tomáš in the quite traditional way of vocal pieces, the other two short ambient tracks accompanying the title song reflect the theme in different ways.
“Saturnin Fire And The Restless Ocean” creates a kind of “microscopic world” counterpart to “Gone”. It was inspired by the thoughts on inner harmony by Tomáš' Chinese medicine doctor friend: when mind and heart are in balance, the heart is like shining fire and the mind is like a calm and still ocean. If things are getting unstable, the heart's fire is becoming volatile and the mind's ocean's waves start to swell. While “Saturnin …” is a very intimate song on this self-reflection of the personal psychic landscape, it easily becomes a strong epic hymn in the hands of Joe Acheson of Hidden Orchestra. With this, Joe is returning the remix favour on Hidden Orchestra's earlier Denovali Records release “Flight”, which included Floex' “Dust Remix”. It is great to listen to another offspring of the continuing dialogue between these musical mates.
There are more things that all songs of this release have in common - the typical sound of Floex' Petrof piano. It endorses the melancholic and ethereal mood of the EP songs, and the final four-hand piano piece “Time To Go” makes no exception. It includes field recordings grasping the theatrical “farewell” scene from a sound installation at the Brixen Fortress during the Manifesta festival. This song was originally created from the four-hand composition of Tomáš and his pianist friend Jirí Libánský, who met during their improvisation project “Orlak”.
The title song “Gone” was especially composed for the Floex live vocalist Sára Vondrášková of Never Sol and meant to be performed on concerts, and it indeed soon become the pivotal song of Floex' playlist. The lyrics were written by Tomáš' long term collaborator Anya Stuart who besides being a singer, writer and musician works also as a movie director. When she heard the song she immediately offered Tomáš to make a video clip for it. Currently living in Paris, it no surprise that the main inspiration source for the video was the medieval French 'Apocalypse Tapestry' in Angers nearby Paris. Working with her photographer friend Michal Ureš behind the camera, they created free contemporary reinterpretations of selected scenes of the tapestry based on super slow motion shootings. This perfectly exemplifies the idea behind the song, a very odd moment in our life we don't recognise since it is happening very slowly from our personal point of view but very fast from the point of view of mankind. People are still behaving as if nothing would happen or change, but the fire is already behind their doors, the old times have already gone.
“Gone” is closing a certain period of Floex' production which started with his 2nd full length album “Zorya” in 2011. After getting such a great feedback on this release, Tomáš decided to get back to it, pick up his favorite track “Veronika's Dream” and give it a little bit more attention. The result of this effort you can find as a downloadable bonus track accompanying this EP: a remix of “Veronika's Dream” by Dikolson, Tomáš favourite producer, and general iconic figure of the electronic music scene in Prague. Moreover, after about a year of preparation, a video clip for the original song was made. About 20 people, headed by director Tomáš Hájek, visual artist Anna Krticová and Veronika Vlková herself created rather a short movie inspired by Tomáš Dvorák's crazy surrealistic imaginary: the one-eyed Veronika is eaten by a wolf and inside of his stomach a floorball match is happening. She fights against her psychological antipode for her missing eye and wins just to uncover deeper sides of her existence.
The 10'' comes in a special thick gatefold sleeve, on two different vinyl colors and with a free download code.
For fans of HIDDEN ORCHESTRA, ERIK SATIE, JON HOPKINS or BAT FOR LASHES.