Stereolab was always like the cool older sister of music to me. In my mind, anyone who likes them is the epitome of chic. Their brand of hip elevator music has always fascinated me, their electronic melodies so 3-D in their sound that their songs wrap around me whenever I listen to them, bright circles and loops like glowsticks in the dark. Stereolab seems to be determined to take all the beauty of the cosmos and translate it into music, and no song of theirs does this better than “The Flower Called Nowhere”.
Standing strong at the third of a ten track wonder, “The Flower Called Nowhere” has well over two million Spotify streams for a reason. This is a song that pushes the boundaries of what music can do, one that uses vocals and guitars and drums and pianos in ways that seem swapped yet work perfectly well.
It always reminded me of a train starting up, one that goes through a sleepy countryside while snow falls gently on the windows. “The Flower Called Nowhere” is a song that keeps chugging along, never faltering from its formulaic structure. A gentle and low lead vocal balances perfectly with a higher backing chorus, sounding angelic like people sound in particularly good dreams. While it’s easy to look at the song as being inhuman, there are elements of it that prove the reality of it. For example, piano and acoustic guitar are left to sound exactly as they normally do, buried underneath cosmic details, hidden in plain sight.
I’ve never been able to decide what level this song takes place in. I could see “The Flower Called Nowhere” floating in the air as the wind, transcending the sky above the clouds, or even exploring the deepest parts of the ocean. Despite my internal debate about the location that would fit it best, I am comforted by the fact that wherever “The Flower Called Nowhere” belongs, it certainly is beautiful.
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