The year is 2087.  Italy is now a tropical country, waves of sweltering heat empty the streets as people take refuge in anti-heat bunkers.  Only the rich can travel via their luxury railway.  And, in the short months of what was once winter, people emerge briefly into the vegetation smothered ruins, gathering at abandoned bars, and listening to new forms of jazz forged underground.

Laura Agnusdei is an Italian saxophone player, currently based in Bologna, who has also played in Julie’s Haircut and {scope}.  Flowers Are Blooming In Antarctica is her second full-length and follow up to 2019’s Laurisilva.  I first saw her playing as a touring member of the James Jonathan Clancy Band last year and was intrigued to investigate her solo work.

It proves to be the most evocative of journeys. Calling upon the writing of J.G. Ballard, James Bridle, and Luigi Serafini, Agnusdei evokes a futuristic vision of climatic breakdown, the battle between synthetic and natural worlds, and between collective human resilience and social segregation.

Languorous organs and tribal infused, polyrhythmic beats provide the psychedelic canvas for Agnusdei’s vibrant tenor sax.  Her playing sweeps from mournful melodicism to skittering minimalism, from jaggedly discordant eruptions to elegantly slinky solos.  Aided and abetted by her musical collective, Agnusdei’s compositions deftly braid her sax playing with their ensemble of brass, wind, and string instruments, from the trumpet to the tarawangsa by way of the clarinet.

Each track introduces us to a different dimension of life in our dystopian future, one ravaged by both deadly heat and divisive economic inequality. The hypnotic grooves of opener Ittiolalia lure us in, while the boisterously swinging Oasi Bar brings us to the brief collective respite of winter, before Emperor Penguin Lullaby manifests a hauntingly entrancing close.  An truly immersive atmosphere is conjured, a beguiling sense of languid beauty amid the desolation.