Marie & The Wildwood Flowers

Virtually unknown even in the alternative rock world, Marie & the Wildwood Flowers released an interesting, difficult-to-classify LP in the late '80s that, like the works of (for example) Marianne Faithfull and Gavin Friday, drew from both post-punk and European cabaret forms. The group was a vehicle for Swedish singer/songwriter Marie Ell, who co-wrote and co-produced the group's self-titled 1987 album with Henryk Lipp. The Wildflowers, if they were a separate entity, had a free-floating membership: numerous musicians contributed to the album, which had a different lineup on each track. Ell could recall gloom-mongers like Nico and Siouxsie in both her delivery and lyrics, but she was more diverse in approach. Her material was difficult to pin down, touching upon blues-rock, torch ballads, and dark psychedelia; the arrangements were very ambitious and ever-shifting, employing distorted guitars, eerie synthesizers, and dabs of cello, brass, and violin. I'm not aware of any other subsequent recordings (which isn't to say there weren't any); the album's worth keeping an eye out for, as one of the more interesting oddities of '80s underground rock. ~ Richie Unterberger