Laura Agnusdei Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica Maple Death DL/LP There was a time when the citation of JG Ballard as an influence on music could be read as a warning of some dour ruminations about empty silos and roundabouts. Slightly resituating Ballard as a literary predecessor to the still fairly recent shift from sci-fi to cli-fi (climate fiction) is a refreshing angle at least. That’s just one way in which Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica by Italian tenor saxophonist Laura Agnusdei reroutes expectations.

Flowers is a sort of concept album about climate change, both stylistically and conceptually allied to fusion. It offsets a plethora of reeds with electronics and environmental recordings while alternately invoking exotica, Eno & Hassell, electric Miles and Ethio-jazz.