Marie & the Wildwood Flowers

Virtually unknown actually in the choice rock world, Marie & the Wildwood Flowers released a fascinating, difficult-to-classify LP in the past due ’80s that, just like the works of (for instance) Marianne Faithfull and Gavin Friday, drew from both post-punk and European cabaret forms. The group was a car for Swedish vocalist/songwriter Marie Ell, who co-wrote and co-produced the group’s self-titled 1987 recording with Henryk Lipp. The Wildflowers, if indeed they were another entity, experienced a free-floating regular membership: numerous music artists contributed towards the recording, which experienced a different lineup on each monitor. Ell could recall gloom-mongers like Nico and Siouxsie in both her delivery and lyrics, but she was even more diverse in strategy. Her materials was hard to pin down, coming in contact with upon blues-rock, torch ballads, and dark psychedelia; the plans were extremely ambitious and ever-shifting, utilizing distorted guitars, eerie synthesizers, and dabs of cello, brass, and violin. I’m unaware of some other following recordings (which isn’t to state there weren’t any); the album’s well worth keeping an vision out for, among the even more interesting oddities of ’80s underground rock and roll.