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088 JUNE 2015 JB Hi-Fi
visit COVER FEATURE MUSIC
Florence + the Machine’s new album How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful
is about learning to love life as you find it. By Jonathan Alley
I magine being an internationally recognised
pop star at 21. Sounds great, doesn’t it?
The world at your feet, parties,
fame, travelling the world,
doors opening to corners of
possibility, of which teenage
you never dared dream.
The reality, of course,
is different. 21 year olds
(famous or no) have
plenty of living to do,
and plenty of life to
work out for themselves.
Doing that in the full
glare of public opinion
– particularly with the 100-
fold amplification of social
media turned on your life 24/7
– really isn’t that much fun.
Florence Welch, AKA Florence of
Florence + the Machine, knows about the
pitfalls of trying to live a private life in a
public world all too well. While Florence +
the Machine is a band (‘the machine’ was a
teenage in-joke shared with bandmate Isabella
Summers), the inevitable light of public attitude
shines lightest and longest on the woman who
shares the group’s name. After touring 2011’s
Ceremonials, Florence went to ground for some
time; she changed her living situation, and
while hardly becoming a hermit, she did her
best to forget about the demands of her music
career. “Did I want to carry on the whirlwind of
touring? Or did I need some time, to read and
reflect?“ she ruminates. “I think I was caught
between those two completely polar opposites.
Like, being on my kitchen table at 11am, or...
just wanting to be quiet and read?“
The resulting album christened How Big,
How Blue, How Beautiful is freshly available
to ears in time for the upcoming Florence +
the Machine shows at Splendour in the Grass
in July; it's a fairly personal affair that, while
inevitably tied up in metaphor, processes a
life spent in the sealed bubble of the touring
experience, looking back at various events of
elation, madness, blow outs and triumphs.
“It is a very personal record,” she concurs.
“I thought it was about one thing and then…
it’s turned out to be about so many different
things.” Of course in the songwriting game,
love is never very far away; while certain songs
or song titles (What Kind of Man? springs to
mind) allude to themes of the heart, the album
inevitably revealed itself as being about all the
things simmering away under the surface. “I
thought it was about a relationship and then as
I’ve listened to it and gone through it, I realised
I thought it was about
a relationship. I
realised it was about
a relationship I was
having with myself.