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Lover of all things old and ‘classic’, very few pieces of current music, let alone independent or psychedelic music, move me. To me, music is Bach or Yasayë, sometimes Anoushka Shankar or TM Krishna, all playing in the background while I keep chomping off my keyboard–writing, editing, and researching–day in and day out. ‘Elevator music’, I confess, is what I conventionally prefer because it suits my writing regimen. In the middle of a workday, seldom does any music force me to forget everything and clutch my ear-pods, and listen deeply and desperately, even fearfully, lest any note is missed.
Flowers on Both Ears’s debut EP ‘UMĀ’ moved me. It stopped me. I clutched my earphones and listened as the first track serenaded me into a meditative calm. I closed my eyes, and in a state of almost-inebriation, even hallucination, I listened, only seeing the dark and feeling the wind flutter against my skin. As the tracks from their cosmo-psychedelic debut ‘Umā’ kept unwinding, I found myself transcending into poetic contemplation, almost violent trepidation, even devotional nostalgia, melting slowly with each reference I hold the knowledge of but never quite reveal so much.
Flowers on Both Ears are a duo based in Sri Lanka. By their own confession, they “draw inspiration from a worldview based on their Islamic faith: The world of nature, understood as articulations of the cosmic Quran, in the breath of the All-Merciful.” Their songs, they say, “ are an attempt at thematically connecting with certain traditions and forms of Islamic love poetry especially the Nasīb. Poetry in which human and divine love, transpire in the breath of the Merciful.” They released their EP in March 2020.
The multi-lingual EP opens with what seems like a much-desired meditative break in the middle of all the rut in the world. The chanting and the beautiful bird music is accompanied by Colombo band The Soul’s guitarist Sarani’s moving notes. The EP further evolves into the delicate ‘Amiga, Mi Corazon’ featuring producer-DJ, model, and vocalist from India/Sri Lanka, Paloma Monnappa, and Bangladesh’s Moumita.
‘Clitoria Ternatea’, in the same vein as the flower, unfolds into a beautiful story populated by devotional references, as it rises and dips along the mores of psychedelic and soft rock.
‘At her altar’, on the other hand, feels like doldrums that rise inside of you. It talks about prayer and ‘sacred geometry’ in a voice so consuming, it seems one is being called to be mesmerised in the cavernous depth of meaning and sound. It’s difficult not to tremble at the intensity of the lyrics. Thankfully, there’s Paloma, whose components bring a mirage-like relief, a mangrove bark one holds on to as they keep getting consumed into the morass.
Lurking around R&B sounds, ‘Pheonix Zeylanica’ provides the indispensable closure, pulling the listener up, rescuing them from the vertically fathomless depths the album drags them to.
The EP is available for free download on Bandcamp and Soundcloud:
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