Premiere: Humfree Bug Art, “Flowers”

We introduced you recently to Humfree Bug Art with their new single "Flowers", and now we bring you the debut of the reflected visualizations, courtesy of Johan Stolpe and crew. Coming from various outlying rural counties of Sweden; Arvid Jonsson, Andreas Sandberg, Sebastion Svesson Nylin, Andreas Henningson, Daniel Vestin, and Frederick Forell make a large landscape of sound that walks you through fields with cozy, countryside-comfort field sonics, and a dash of that cottage life. Together they bring sensibilities from a variety of musical chemistries and astute schools of theorems as found on their extended players Chairlene, With Nights and Lights, and their newest Esplanaden Fonogram release, Collema. But now look into the reflecting glass where all objects and images displayed are met together in various cut angles.

The guitars whirl and rock in that royal processional progression, while the organ pedals bellow out large billows of breath. The video bounces depictions of kaleidoscoped performances, and image distortions that collides the bug aesthetes' visages into themselves, and further outward. The Swedes take you out to their neighboring pastures, the place "where all flowers grow", and the life and death cycles and metaphysics of gardens "where we all meet at last". It is here in the second tier of "Flowers" where the final moments of flashing stage lights create the excitment of that fabled shimmering garden meeting; displayed through the strobing colored bulbs and glimmering big finale like an ecstatic supernatural event. After that experience, we reached out to the Humfree Bug Art crew to delve deeper into the mirror's reflected effects.

Whoa, this video is rad, love the mirror alterations! When are you looking to take these effects on the road as a live visualization?

We're not planning on bringing mirrors to our live performances in the near future, pineapples have been discussed though. Right now we're busy playing all over Sweden and in the Fall we plan to do a European tour.

Would you all care to spare some words about constructing the mirror fractured images for the visual translation of "Flowers?"

The video was shot in an old storage building near the train station in the city of Falun, Sweden. Almost everything seen in the video is tied to strings hanging from the roof 50 feet up, including windows, cymbals, a bathroom sink and a spruce forest.

How the Humphrey Bogart wordplay of Humfree Bug Art was born as a band name, and how did you all band together?

The idea of a band was initially hatched by drummer Andreas Sandberg and childhood friend singer Arvid Jonsson in early 2012. When joining in mind with guitarist and sound magician Fredrik Forell we made some very quirky demos and decided we needed to gather another three fine gentlemen to do them justice. There is actually no intention from our part of being associated with the actor Huphrey Bogart. We just liked the individual words and the nonsense they became when joined.

What is it about the recurring motif of nature in your guys's music and sound, making joyful choruses of sound for all plants and creatures in the world?

Us Humfrees were all born and raised in different rural areas of Sweden with scenic nature and striking beauty. Naturally, this has had a huge influence on our music and the way we observe all aspects of our present lives in the urban atmosphere of Stockholm.

Humfree Bug Art's Collema EP is available now from Esplanaden Fonogram.