They ask us to cling onto the present and utilize every second, because time flowers now.
Word: Karl Johnson | Photo: Mars Washington
London collective Fake Turins were brought together through the warehouse communities of Tottenham and Harringay. Their debut EP ‘Time Flowers Now’, a rollercoaster of emotion that cuts and heals in equal measure, brings together the collective minds of ten individuals. Fashioning a body of work that is lyrically grounded in the hypervigilance of today’s society, the band present a feeling of sonic escapism alongside a cavernous groove to move to.
The raw strut and percussion channels New York City in the late 70s, while clarinet and saxophone float with a floral psychedelia – at full tilt the record echos ‘Antidotes’-era Foals in all its knotted and anxious instrumental glory, or Squid at their most coherent. When the dectet finds it’s groove the sound becomes unstoppable, soldier-like in individual restraint and infectious when the time to flourish arrives. Sisters Amy and Rose Wilson fuse clarinet and saxophone parts, warping the band’s relentless drive and tempting it to spiral out of control.
While the EP itself is a cohesive and muscular body of sound, melded by it’s cold and drone-like interludes – which make up part of an experimental/ noise off-shoot album the band are yet to release – there are two tracks that embody the EP best: ‘Down’ and ‘Talking Prophets’. The former is a foot-stomping groove that breaks the silence on experiences with self-hate and depression, the latter challenging the perception of truth and modern day prophetization against a wall of thrashy grooves and bubbling minimalist builds. Fake Turins’ love of electronic and techno music performed within a band set up doesn’t go unnoticed, think Suuns or Soulwax in its intensity.
The closing track ‘Time Flowers Now’ is an intimate moment led with spoken word. It asks the listener to cling onto the present and to utilize every second as if it was our last, or more relevantly to cherish our friendships and lifestyles. “Time Flowers Now is a poem that I wrote as the final piece to the puzzle,” states vocalist Dominic Rose, “it was inspired by a Patti Smith quote which calls on each generation to embrace their present and put aside the idea that the best times are in the past – the time to flower is now. The idea of something we all hold sacred, such as ‘time’, is profoundly incomprehensible yet taken for granted. My response was this, if we don’t flower too then these driftless sands might sink our shoes“.
The EP is a journey of warm psychedelic sounds, bathe in the depths of its groove and watch as the reed section tangles and grows around you.
hardofhearingmagazine.com 