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“The way the songs of ‘Songs from Gardens’ connect with each other is so beautiful, showing how much thought May Flower has put into the EP”.
May Flower, a Polish musician based in London also known as Maja Koperska, has just released her debut EP ‘Songs from Gardens’. Koperska uses synesthesia as inspiration for her work, and the EP reflects this greatly through the weather imagery and embracement of nature.
The first track ‘welcome’ really does welcome us to the peaceful sound and lush atmosphere we encounter on ‘Songs from Gardens’. The song is mostly instrumental, meaning few lyrics, however lines like ‘leave ice and snow behind, goodbye’ fully encapsulate the shift from winter to spring. ‘think about summer’ follows on nicely, foretelling the beauty and bliss that comes with summer. The unconventional structure of ‘think about summer’ reveals the authenticity of it, where May Flower lets her emotions flow freely through observant lyrics.
‘no thinking, just growing’ is the single of ‘Songs from Gardens’, having been released as the debut song of May Flower back in May. Here Maja characterises nature and compares it to herself, singing an immaculate description of such nature on top of the angelic instrumental of her own voice. In ‘worldly affairs’, Koperska suggests we should trade ‘radio and tv’ with ‘flowery certainty’, proving through her soft serene vocals that nature is responsible for the happiness left in the world.
Maja explained what effect she wanted the EP to have on her listeners. She said, “I love words a lot, so I read quite a bit during the making of this EP. One book in particular, ‘Upstream’ by Mary Oliver really stood out to me. At one point she says something very beautiful about her poems, and as I find it difficult to talk about my own work, I started borrowing her words to explain the purpose of my EP. She said that poems are there to keep people company and be like temples or green fields – places to enter and in which to feel. this is what I want my songs (and specifically this EP) to be. A place to enter, and in which to feel.”
‘Together’ beautifully brings the EP to an end. The mix of delicate instrumental and deep layers of emotion create something profoundly heartfelt that allows us to see, hear and feel the sincere relationship between humanity and nature.
You can listen to the EP here:
