JD Werner – “Last Flowers”

JD Werner – “Last Flowers”

JD Werner is a member of Tunde Adebimpe’s Higgins Waterproof Black Magic Band who has also toured and recorded with acts including CocoRosie, Wu-Tang Clan, Lee “Scratch” Perry, and Matisyahu. Today he releases “Last Flowers,” his first solo track. The song is the lead single from Station Of Lost, a self-described “classic breakup/divorce album.” On “Last Flowers,” Werner uses creeping percussion and heavily-filtered vocals to outline strife and betrayal: “Why go through all that trouble/ To hurt what you once loved?” Accompanying the song is artwork by Werner himself, depicting David Bowie during the Thin White Duke era. Here’s what Werner had to say about the extremely personal track:

Floored and reeling from a difficult loss, friends offered support and outwardly wondered what sort of new music I would create.I was curious as well but my first attempts felt forced, so I began to paint. I wanted to feel the sense of discovery I experienced the first time I wrote a song, or plugged in an electric guitar, or composed on an analog synthesizer. As I freed myself from old patterns and formulas of songwriting, I felt unshackled by a medium, and most importantly began to forget who I felt I was supposed to be.

New music quickly began to flow, and I lost myself on a new creative path.

As I was writing “Last Flowers” as a send off to my lost marriage, David Bowie passed. This portrait of Bowie as the thin white duke is also a goodbye, a personal farewell to a hero.

I hope both pieces take some solace in the inevitability of loss, and find some beauty in the temporary nature of our time and experience…

Check it out below.

Station Of Lost is due out in early 2017.

more from New Music