Tomato Flower

"Tomato Flower are masters of the short form" - The FADER

“rife with tensions, both musical and personal” - The Quietus

“Never mind the unenthusiastic title, enthusiasm suffuses No” - Bandcamp Daily

Today marks the long-awaited release of Tomato Flower’s debut full-length, No. The early EPs from Baltimore’s Tomato Flower were pretty, dreamy psychedelia–warm to the touch, like looking up at the trees on a cloudless day. On No, those trees, that cloudless sky, have become haunted, thorny, stormy. It takes Tomato Flower’s sound from buttoned-up, almost technically formalist psych pop to something more urgent, raw, emotionally immediate. 

Composed in the midst of a breakup between lead vocalists and guitarists Austyn Wohlers and Jamison Murphy, it’s a record about negation: I will not do this, you cannot tell me what to do, we are not living in a utopia, don’t be delusional. No embraces a kind of brutal realism, a confrontation of life that only happens when you wizen up a little bit. It’s messier, more expansive, and through all of its chaos, the band’s most rigorous artistic statement to date. 

In case you missed it, last week Tomato Flower dropped “Harlequin,” No's final single, and an accompanying interactive video on their website. Piece it together here.

 The quartet kicks off a month-long tour with babybaby_explores this weekend, and if you’re in the Baltimore area be sure to catch them tonight at The Coumpound for their record release show (tickets).