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LIANA FLORES on her newest music and nature
press conference
WORDS by Tessa Swantek TALENTLiana Flores PHOTO Sequoia Ziff PR °1824
It’s rare when our natural world in contemporary art isn’t depicted as merely a setting - an unmoving, unbreathing, unemotional thing. On first listen of Liana Flores’ music, nature stretches its spindly fingers, inhales then exhales like the crash of a wave, and bellows out a showering laugh or a cry. Liana becomes a part of its animation, sometimes even sinking beneath it. Nature is often the more noticeably sentient being, observing her like an insect peeking out of the dirt or a flower with raindrops soaking her petal-peppered face.
When asked about the literary influences that inspired her more recent releases, “Nightvisions,” “I wish for the rain”, and “rises the moon”, she says “I was reading Jane Eyre and Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier for “Nightvisions” - books about obsession, gothic romance, castles, and thunderstorms.” In Jane Eyre, nature expresses Jane’s innermost feelings that become trapped in the Victorian Era’s wiry cage created for women to sit still in. It isn’t until Jane defies these societal expectations that she says one of the more famous lines, “I am no bird and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being, with an independent will which I now exert to leave you.” She becomes free as the natural world, a part of its system rather than society’s system. Nature is a character in Rebecca as well; “Nature had come into her own again, and little by little had encroached upon the drive with long, tenacious fingers." It would be incorrect to say Liana’s music, like her literary influences, personifies nature when it really seems to understand nature's personhood, letting it live and breathe rather than trapping it as a lifeless setting.
Liana says she “was a wise old oak” and continues, “Trees, to me, symbolize all things rooted and generous - they give fruit a lot of the time. I like that they’ve been here before us and they’ll be here after us. That’s a very reassuring thought.” Her song, “rises the moon” holds a similar lyrical reassurance in that amongst all change, the moon comes as it always has. Lyrics are, “Days pull you up just like a daffodil / Uprooted from its garden / They'll tell you what you owe, but know even so / Rises the moon.” In her music, nature often has the control, the will, the power. It’s both comforting and unsettling; Liana says the music video for the song was inspired by “1960s and 1970s folk horror like Picnic at Hanging Rock.” She continues, “It captures the uncanny and eerie side of the British countryside landscape.”
"I like that trees have been here before us and they'll be here after us."
rises the moon by Liana Flores
OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO
The tone of Liana’s music is often described as nostalgic for it’s sound that floats between ethereal beauty and deep melancholy. When asked how she would describe her music, she says, “I think about writing music that is nostalgic but also fresh. What I’ve settled on at the moment is aiming for a sound that is timeless. The songs I love are the ones that could have existed in any time. One particular song is “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles which she says she “used to listen to so much [in childhood] that it broke the cassette tape it was on.” She specifically calls her song, “I wish for the rain” nostalgic. Lyrics are “A fool in the rain, hoping you'll come by / But you won't, I'll remain with tears in my eyes / I'm a living cliché, and you're kissing her face / I'm alone / With a wish for the rain / When I cry, the rain knows why / She knows.” This song in particular feels timeless in its vast loneliness, much like the one present in Eleanor Rigby. And in some way that loneliness feels like a way of belonging as well. The moon is alone too. So is the three hundred year old oak tree, yet its roots are intricately connected in spiraling tendrils. Liana seems deeply and emotionally connected to exchanges of energy between humans and nature - how rain lets the flowers grow, how a potato provides nutrients, how we all give and take, how we all need. Let her music take root in you.
Liana will release her debut album, Flower of the Soul on June 28, 2024.
I wish for the rain by Liana Flores
OFFICIAL VISUALIZER
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