Florence + The Machine: Missing links, missing songs

Back in 2016, still very much on a giddy high from seeing Florence + The Machine headline British Summertime, I stumbled across three songs on YouTube by the band that I had never heard before.

The songs in question had clearly been uploaded illegally by fans and, mistakenly it seemed to me, flagged as being songs from the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album.

I scoured the internet looking for clues that the three songs - 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' - might have been released as extra tracks on deluxe or international editions of the album, but I never found any trace of them on track listings.

I've always got the impression, from the scant amount of information I've been able to find online, that the three songs do date from the recording sessions for the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album. I did, eventually, track down 'As Far As I Could Get', which had been the B Side to the 2015 Record Store Day 12" of 'What Kind of Man', but I was never able to establish the origins of 'Pure Feeling' or 'Conductor'.

As is well known, Florence Welch was emotionally and mentally very unhappy at the time that the album was recorded. She later said that the incredibly beautiful, but harrowing, 'Various Storms & Saints', was a song that she campaigned to have taken off the album because she felt it was "too sad".

If she felt that 'Various Storms & Saints' was going to be too sad for fans, it's easy to see why 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' didn't make the final cut: While the three songs are sonically amazing, they are also - emotionally - the sound of a woman in absolute turmoil.

'Pure Feeling' is an incredibly catchy piece of guitar led pop, in which Welch is singing towards the higher end of her range throughout. The lyrics seem to concern an almost obsessively intense heartbreak that is haunting her to the extent that she is in mental and emotional freefall, the overall effect of the song being to showcase a particularly naked form of vulnerability which makes for a distinctly uneasy listen.

Similarly, the sprawling 'As Far As I Could Get' begins with Welch singing softly and sadly before upping the tension and unleashing the full power of her voice. This is total romantic devastation wrapped up in the stylings of post Patti Smith stream of conscious, with Welch trapped in California, surrounded by sun and palm trees, struggling to come to terms with a particularly traumatic break up.

There's a photo of her in her recent book, Useless Magic, that seems to really sum up this period: Welch is pictured lying by the side of a swimming pool that is lit by brilliant sunshine, far too bright and glittering for the picture to have been taken in the UK. She is dressed scruffily in shorts and a t-shirt which bears the slogan 'HELL'. Her face is turned away from the camera, gazing at the blue water in the pool, her hair is tied back, one hand trails in the water. She looks both haunted and absolutely miserable.

This sense of being haunted is perhaps at it's strongest in the song 'Conductor' which seems to go beyond sadness into anger and, finally, to reach a sort of rueful acceptance. As with it's two sister tracks (I can't help but think of them as interconnected...) the sheer naked honesty draws you in, even as it makes you feel slightly uncomfortable.

Welch has always been a refreshingly honest performer. That this is combined with a love of privacy and tendency towards anxiety can't help but, I suspect, make her professional life difficult. It doesn't seem to stop her though. Just as the How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful album was the child of Lungs and Ceremonials, 2018's High As Hope very much builds on the work begun by How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. Not just sonically, but also lyrically and thematically.

I can understand why 'Pure Feeling', 'As Far As I Could Get' and 'Conductor' were not more widely released, just as I can understand why 'Which Witch' didn't go beyond demo stage. Those songs are jaw droopingly good but they're also incredibly dark and there comes a point, it's to be suspected, when a move towards the light feels a saner option in the long term for any performer. That doesn't mean that darkness is no longer a part of Welch's work - clearly it is - just that there are points when it feels right to say 'No'.

A devastating new album by Florence + The Machine

Regular readers of this blog will probably be used to me being extremely hyperbolic as regards the talented Ms Florence Welch and Florence + The Machine.

But, hand on heart, the woman has surpassed herself with the new album High As Hope.

In the past fortnight or so it has earned the accolade of Album That Makes Me Cry The Most Ever.

For a variety of reasons...

I have just published my review of the album, and Welch's book of poetry and lyrics, Useless Magic, over on The F-Word.

Writing about a band you love doesn't have to be difficult but I've found that it's best to take a very specific approach to the task. That is, to write as though writing for an audience who A.) Are not aware of the artist in question at all or B.) Are aware of the artist in question but are largely indifferent to them. I tend to avoid taking this approach to it's logical conclusion of C.) Writing for an audience who actively dislike the artist in question. Why? Because life's too short. If I achieve a change of mind in those folk by accident, fair enough, but I'm not going to actively try and force someone to like an artist they really don't have any time for.

It's important not to write in fan mode when reviewing bands you love, if only because that tends to mean incorporating a sort of fanbase shorthand that no one beyond the fanbase can understand, which is a massive turn off for those not in the know. Also, you can't just exclaim a lot of superlatives, it's more important to try to paint a picture of what the record sounds like for the benefit of the uninitiated, make it vivid and real to them. They're more likely to go off and listen to it if you describe, say, 'Cosmic Love' as having "Sledgehammer drums" and "Soaring vocals" than if you just saying "It's AMAZING!!!" but don't explain why.

I hope I've got the balance right with my review of High As Hope because, while Florence + The Machine are hardly an obscure, undiscovered band, I do feel at times that they are underestimated and under appreciated. Not taken as seriously as musical talent as they might be. There is a slight suspicion in my mind that Florence Welch's pre Raphaelite inspired image sometimes works against her in the confines of the traditional rock press, that she is somehow viewed as being too feminine to be appreciated by the 'serious' rock critics and rock fans. Or is it more the combination of a very feminine image with assertiveness rather than passivity? Femininity combined with sonically complex emotional music? I'm not sure, I just have theories and feelings about all of this, suspicions...

Women do seem to really get the band, and the music, as well as the image and I would say that, both times I saw the band live (on the last tour) the audience was probably about 60:40 or 70:30 female:male. This is not a bad thing by any means, in fact it does tend to make for a more interesting gig atmosphere from my point of view, but it does also position the band outside of the rock canon quite often.

Rolling Stone described Florence + The Machine as one of the best live acts around today during the last tour in 2015-2016, and of the band's upcoming UK dates four of the nine have already sold out. They continue to go from strength to strength.

Some critics get it, some critics don't.

But the fans remain true and loyal.

Image is the album cover to Florence + The Machine's High As Hope album. Photo of Florence Welch by Tom Beard.