FLO "Therapy at the Club": From nostalgic R&B to club catharsis

The album marks the artistic maturation of FLO, who distance themselves from the label of operation-nostalgia to establish themselves as one of the most relevant and aware realities of contemporary pop-R&B

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There are places where pop culture loves to look at itself in the mirror to reassure itself, and then there are the bathrooms of clubs at three in the morning.

It is there, among the fog of steam, the breaths of perfume and the doors filled with felt-tip writing, that any social mask falls away.

They know it well Stella Quaresma, Jorja Douglas and Renée Downerthe British trio better known as FLO, who with their second album “Therapy at the Club” sign an operation of urban sociology disguised as dancefloor disco.

The premise, told by the members of the group themselves, has the flavor of a manifesto: «For us the club is more than a night out, it’s therapy – they tell Pitchfork – No place makes you feel more understood than the girls’ bathroom at a party.”

A concept that is only apparently banal, which the trio uses as a conceptual picklock to undermine the formula with which they made themselves known to the general public.

At their debut, FLO had conquered the international charts by playing the card of nostalgic philology. Their sound was an impeccable architecture built on the foundations of turn-of-the-millennium R&B: precise TLC references, sharp vocal harmonies and that smooth, polished production that openly referenced the golden era of Rodney “Darkchild” Jerkins. A perfect, sparkling, almost showcase product.

With Therapy at the Club, the strategy changes radically. The three artists stop polishing the body and move directly to scratching the bodywork. The formal cleanliness gives way to a rougher and more aggressive production, where the care for the vocal fit no longer serves to please the listener, but to drag him into the emotional chaos of an unfiltered night.

With this second test, FLO demonstrate that they are not a meteor destined to remain caged in the 2000s revival. Therapy at the Club is a mature, bold and journalistically interesting album because it is capable of photographing a precise generational need: that of transforming the hedonism of the dance floor into a space of collective decompression.

A contemporary R&B album, written with lipstick on the mirror of a club one minute before going back to dancing.