Blue Chemise - Flower Studies (2021) Hi-Res

Mark Gomes' fourth album as Blue Chemise is a dusty set of Satie-influenced piano études that reflect solemnly on Adolphe Braun's greyscale floral photography.

Braun's pictures evoke a feeling of trapped beauty, and Aussie composer Gomes uses well-worn production techniques to suggest nostalgia and charm in an attempt to recreate. The album is mostly assembled using just piano, drybrushed with carefully procured field recordings, creaking Mellotron pads and subtle drones. With these elements, Gomes assembles a still life that's ghostly but stylish - a sound that signals to the past but floats through various eras with lubricated ease.

Not quite neo-hauntology and not quite as stark as the solo piano work of Goldmund or Nils Frahm, "Flower Studies" is melancholy, cinematic and affecting. If it was snapped up as the soundtrack to a BBC documentary, we wouldn't be surprised.