The Last Black Flower the new album from Soothsayer Orchestra, the one-man project of Dutch experimentalist Pieter Hendriks, is out today via Lay Bare Recordings.
Pieter is a musical solitudinarian who has enough gumption to leave the commonplace behind and only take with him what can enrich his music and performance. There is a certain weight of tragedy in his music. Pieters gravelly voice possesses an uneasy moodiness that reflects doom and despair, which immerses you in the dark side of life. Then, amidst this darkness Hendriks shifts his compositions to newfound hope, warm and flowing, creating a longing, yet bold mood.
In his brand-new studio, fittingly named The Dungeon, Hendriks crawled back into writing mode for new album The Last Black Flower and explored new territory, always looking for new influences. Elements of electronic industrial music and psychedelic vintage rock blend with the dark bluesy foundation on which Soothsayer Orchestra is firmly built. Lyrically and conceptually this album can be seen as a documentation of self-reflection that Hendriks went through during the often hopeless and haunting years of the pandemic. What came out of this is a beautiful and very honest album that lays bare one’s soul and takes the listener on a musically dynamic journey through Hendriks his mind.
Pieter Hendriks comments:
“This album is musically a journey with heavy industrial fueled riffing and electronic vibes flowing into small fragile songs and darkblues rocking roadtrip horizon gazers. It is truelly a trip through the brain, as if reading a diary written by a person digging through the deepest vaults of their soul losing himself but also rediscovering themselves and griefing the loss of love and scared of losing control. A moodswing that paints the times we are living in perfectly. A very deep and personal record that people can relate to and find a piece of themselves in, hope and destruction mix with love and death. This is a record that had to be made to stay sane and build a bridge crawling out of darkness longing for light.”
