Ears Wide Open: Electric Flower

Kevin Bronson on October 31st, 2011

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Think of this as a match made at a gloriously noisy station in heaven: Electric Flower pairs one of the most formidable shredders around, guitarist Imaad Wasif, with one of the most ferocious drummers, Josh Garza of Secret Machines. The story goes that they met while trapped in an elevator in London some years ago, reconnected later in L.A. and decided to team up and make noise. Now they have a 12-inch vinyl EP coming Nov. 8 on Narnack Records, with another due in the new year. The music fuses Wasif’s psychedelic leanings with Garza’s thunderous underpinning, and the first single “Four16” has some special meaning for the guitarist. It was inspired by Kurt Cobain’s 1993 MTV Unplugged performance of the Leadbelly song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night.” Says the press release: “Four16” refers to the minute mark (4:16) during Cobain’s performance where you can see him become possessed in a flash and his soul leave his body. “He was gone a long time before he was really gone,” Wasif says. [Here’s the video: It’s at 4:03 in this YouTube posting.]

||| Download: “Four16”