Tomato Flower Announce ‘Construction’ EP and Share Title-track
The experimental pop unit from Baltimore turns their utopian impulse towards the worldly with the dense, knotted pop songs of Construction, a companion to their stand-out 2022 debut EP Gold Arc.
photo by Marie Mechin
“Tomato Flower pack years of ideas into just 12 minutes on Gold Arc, delivering a debut release that punches way above its weight.” – Scott Russell, Paste Magazine
“Exuding the jazzy warmth of bands like Crumb and Men I Trust, Tomato Flower have dreamed up a miniature biodome all their own.” Jude Noel, Bandcamp Daily
Following the release of Tomato Flower’s stand-out future-pop debut, Gold Arc, the Baltimore unit turn their utopian impulse towards the worldly with a companion EP, Construction, out August 5th, 2022 on Philly label Ramp Local. Out today is the title-track, “Construction,” a dizzying slice of futuristic pop music with a critical view of history and feelings of dispossession and destruction. Also out on August 5th is a cassette and CD release including music from both EPs, and featuring unique artwork by James Patrick Mayer that merges both EP covers into one brain-melting image.
Construction refers both to “constructedness,” processes of artifice and social construction, as well as the material activity of building. The music evokes something sculptural, reflecting the painstaking processes of material transformation that create physical objects. “Blue” comments acerbically on the profit motive; “Fancy” takes on the ambivalence of desiring success; “Aparecida” imagines a religious vision cut short by having to clock in to work. But for all their literary sensibility and taste for double meanings, Tomato Flower rejects ironic detachment. Feeling is always at the center of the songs, even when the feeling morphs and evades; “Bug” is simultaneously vulnerable and threatening, and “Taking My Time” moves from a plaintive love song to a joyous prophecy. Construction shows a band with a distinctive approach and a deep archive from which they reveal only the brightest and most confounding of pieces.
The band recorded Construction over fall of 2019 into winter of 2021 in the same time frame as Gold Arc. Much of the music came together in the peak days of COVID isolation during long days on the top floor of Wohler and Murphy’s rowhouse, overlooking aging Baltimore architecture. As a group of self-professed psychedelic nerds, the band used this time of uncertainty to stretch the limits of both study and play. The process of composing Construction combined a spirit of academic rigor and intense experimentation as they holed up and crafted pristine jewels of rock music.
For Tomato Flower, stylistic synthesis through the process of songwriting is foundational to the project of genuinely modern pop music. The band’s nuance is achieved by expanding the rhythmic and harmonic palette of a rock band while maintaining the strictness of pop songwriting and its insistence on melody. Perhaps the farthest out from the band’s usual template is “Fancy,” an extended, meditative song with shades of slowcore and shoegaze while “Bug” is perhaps the archetypal Tomato Flower song; its dense, often dissonant guitar interplay, sharp emotional shifts, and jazzy chord qualities are guided by Wohlers’s intimate lead vocal. “Blue” moves from jerky guitar riffs to an ambient outro, reflecting the band members’ shared interest in more textual, expansive types of music. “Taking My Time” sits tautly between post-punk and Bacharach-style pop music before soaring into an angelic bed of harmony; the heavenly firmament as seen through the beams of the construction site.
Construction marks the end of the first phase of Tomato Flower and the beginning of a new phase. Regrouped in Baltimore as a four-piece, they are currently working on their first full-length and playing shows up and down the East Coast and beyond.
Tomato Flower – Construction
August 5th, 2022 – Ramp Local
Tracklist
1. Bug
2. Aparecida
3. Blue
4. Construction
5. Fancy
6. Taking My Time
Credits
Mike Alfieri: drums, bass on “Fancy”
Austyn Wohlers: Synth, guitar, vocals, flute on “Aparecida”
Jamison Murphy: Guitar, vocals, bass (except on “Fancy”)
All songs written by Mike Alfieri, Jamison Murphy, and Austyn Wohlers
Mixed by Jared Paolini
Mastered by Mat Leffler-Schulman
Album art by Patrick Mayer
* = Supporting Animal Collective
^ = Supporting Bex6-21 Cleveland, OH @ Shepard Records
6-22 Detroit, MI @ Trixie’s Bar
6-23 Chicago, IL @ Golden Dagger
6-24 Indianapolis, IN @ State St Pub
6-25 South Bend, IN @ McCormick’s
7-1 Philadelphia, PA @ Khyber Pass Pub
7-2 Washington DC @ DC9 ^
8-13 Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre *
8-16 Edmonton, AB @ Union Hall *
8-17 Calgary, AB @ The Palace *
8-19 Bozeman, MT @ The ELM *
8-20 Missoula, MT @ The Wilma *
8-22 Cheyenne, WY @ The Lincoln *
8-23 Omaha, NE @ Slowdown *
8-24 Des Moines, IA @ Wooly’s *
8-29 Portland, ME @ State Theatre *
8-30 New York, NY @ SummerStage in Central Park *
8-31 New Haven, CT @ College Street Music Hall *
9-2 Toronto, ON @ The Danforth Music Hall *
9-3 Rouyn-Noranda, QC @ Festival De Musique Émergente
9-4 Montréal, QC @ Corona Theatre *
Physical Release
Cassette and CD release includes music from both Gold Arc and Construction, featuring unique artwork by James Patrick Mayer that merges both EP covers into one image.