Bridge Of Flowers: A Soft Day's Night

Go back to a time when music genre categories were not in effect, and listeners were open to crossing borders. Miles Davis was invited to play at rock concerts and Carlos Santana could cover a John Coltrane composition. Some might recall that the innovative free jazz label ESP Disk, started in 1963 by Bernard Stollman, put out albums by The Fugs, Pearls Before Swine, and The Godz concurrently with free jazz from Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman. With the revival of the label in 2015, music of all sorts is beginning to flow again. A Soft Day's Night by the Massachusetts' lo-fi indie rock band Bridge Of Flowers fits nicely alongside recent releases like Fay Victor's SoundNoiseFunk and pianist Matthew Shipp's explorations.

The music is experimentally confessional, like a 17th century Samuel Pepys diary modernized to take into account drugs, disillusionment, and a pandemic. Wait, those are the same troubles that troubled Pepys' London. The music draws from early Pavement and The Velvet Underground. Guitarist and vocalist Jeff Gallagher channels Marc Ribot's Rootless Cosmopolitans, albeit a more rocked out version. Like Ribot, Gallagher favors a matter of fact truth telling. "Year Without Summer" and "Vinegar And Salt" are open wound descriptions of loss, while the story of little "Tambo" and his drug trip ignites a catchy anthem. The music sounds like early demo versions of songs by the 1980's band The Feelies. Cleaning it up though, with a producer, engineer, and some filters would certainly destroy the vitality of Bridge of Flower's message.