Botanist

Botanist

Photosynthesis

Flenser

Photosynthesis is a concept album about how plants convert sunlight into energy, how they transform carbon dioxide into the oxygen that all fauna need to breathe. The album’s eight tracks each deal with an aspect of photosynthesis, from the macro “Water” to the micro “Palisades,” which reflects the theme of botanical lungs on a microscopic level. The album culminates with “Oxygen,” holding high the imagery of “Verdant Alveolus Diaspora,” the album’s core visual theme, depicting the world’s forests as a functioning lung system’s individual cells, scattered throughout the globe.  Photosynthesis is the fourth “collective” album in Botanist’s greater discography, meaning it is composed of a group of individuals. Band originator Otrebor (hammered dulcimers, vocals, keyboards) composed the music and lyrics to the drums of returning member Daturus (Botanist’s live drummer since 2017, who played on 2019’s Ecosystem) and new bassist Tony Thomas. Photosynthesis sees Botanist returning to The Flenser stable, whose partnership yielded three albums, including 2014’s VI: Flora, perhaps the project’s most noteworthy work. This release was recorded in the Verdant Realm in California. The album production was handled by Dan Swanö, a musician whose legend is equally for his enormous contributions to the Swedish melodic and progressive death metal scenes in the ’90s and ’00s, as he is for his output of top-shelf album productions from his Unisound studio. The application of Swanö’s creative genius in more artistic, avant-garde areas of the metal spectrum is a match of dreams for Botanist, resulting in an album that achieves...

Botanist

Vi: Flora

Flenser

One of the Bay Area’s most interesting bands, Botanist is excited to announce their sixth sequential release. Titled VI: Flora, this eleven-song album was recorded by Otrebor in The Verdant Realm and mastered by Jack Shirley at Atomic Garden.  VI: Flora continues the story of The Botanist, a crazed man of science who lives in self-imposed exile, as far away from Humanity and its crimes against Nature as possible. Seated upon his throne of Veltheimia in the Verdant Realm, his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, he surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world. While recent albums detailed a misanthropic master plan for the destruction of mankind at the hands of plants, VI: Flora focuses rather on the wondrous beauty of the plants themselves through a gauzy haze of dreamlike sound. The voice of The Botanist acts as spectral underpinning to the reverie. Botanist’s previous releases—I: The Suicide Tree / II: A Rose from the Dead (tUMULt, 2011), III: Doom in Bloom (TotalRust, 2012) and most recently, 2013’s IV: Mandragora (The Flenser, 2013)—have seen much critical acclaim, landing on NPR’s 25 Best Metal Albums, Metal Sucks’ Top 15 Metal Albums, Metal Injection’s Top 10 Releases, and an honorable mention on Pitchfork’s Top 40 Albums of 2011.  “… music that disobeys every rule about black metal, sounds nothing like black metal, and yet can’t really be called anything but black metal. In that way, Botanist could be the fullest realization of the post-black...

Botanist

Iv: Mandragora

Flenser

Unconventional one-man black metal band Botanist features vocals, drums, and hammered dulcimer instrumentation. Their fourth full-length, IV: Mandragora, released via experimental metal label The Flenser, is a concept album on the alchemical creation of a mandrake, told from the perspective of The Botanist. A crazed man of science, he dwells in self-imposed exile, as far away as possible from humanity and its crimes against nature. The Botanist surrounds himself with plants and flowers, finding solace in the company of the Natural world and envisioning the destruction of mankind. In the Verdant Realm, his sanctuary of fantasy and wonder, The Botanist awaits the day when humans will either die or kill each other off, thereby allowing plants to make the Earth green once again. Botanist’s previous releases, I: The Suicide Tree, II: A Rose From the Dead (released July 2011 on tUMULt), and III: Doom in Bloom (TotalRust), have seen much critical acclaim, landing on NPR’s 25 Best Metal Albums of 2011, Metal Sucks’ Top 15 Metal Albums of 2011 and Metal Injection’s Top 10 Releases of 2011, and earning an honorable mention on Pitchfork’s Top 40 Albums of 2011. This next eccentric and remarkable chapter is sure to turn heads in 2013.