- FLORA is a collaboration by two artists who, at this point in time, seem absolutely perfect for each other. AnnaMelina is a singer and producer who does a synthy brand of R&B, sung, until now, in Swedish. Jonas Rönnberg is Varg, a producer who, over the past few years, has moved past the broody techno of Northern Electronics toward the orbit of someone like Yung Lean—a fellow Swedish graffiti punk who appeared on Rönnberg's last album, Nordic Flora Series Pt. 3, Gore-Tex City. Rönnberg and AnnaMelina have made music together before, on that record and the upcoming Nordic Flora Series Pt. 5: Crush, but Impatience is their first EP as FLORA. On Facebook, Rönnberg said this record is "just the beginning."
"Impatience" is the strange yet intuitive kind of pop both artists have been chipping away at. All towering synths and martial drums, it's like the Terminator theme reimagined as an auto-tuned R&B ballad, setting lyrics about relationship politics—"You're impatient, I won't find excuses just to make you wait"—against an impossibly grandiose backdrop. "Vallmo" maintains the vibe of dystopian romance without the help of drums or vocals, but works mostly as a coda—"Impatience" is the main attraction here. Like the snowmobiles-and-ramen love story of its video, it's melodrama bordering on the ridiculous, but done with an elegance that's hard to resist.
TracklistA Impatience
B Vallmo