-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: White Poppy ALBUM...: Natural Phenomena GENRE...: Indie STYLE...: Ethereal, Shoegaze, Dream Pop, Ambient, Downtempo, Drone, Synth-pop, Synthwave, New Age YEAR....: 2015 LABEL...: Not Not Fun Records ENCODER.: LAME 3.98.4 -V0 BITRATE.: 223 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 11 SIZE....: 75.01 MB URL..: http://www.facebook.com/WhiT3p0pPy - TRACKLIST 1 Confusion 3:16 2 Wild Mind 3:51 3 Sublimity 4:03 4 Exotic Realms 5:03 5 Midnight Sun 4:19 6 Aurora 5:08 7 Telepathic Love 3:48 8 Ebb And Flow 3:49 9 Mermaids 4:36 10 Arctic Rose 5:34 11 Clam Happy 3:15 Total Playtime: 46:42 NOTICE: Track #11 "Clam Happy" is unlisted on cover. http://midheaven.com/item/natural-phenomena-by-white-poppy-cd.html http://www.discogs.com/White-Poppy-Natural-Phenomena/release/7428217 * Crystal Dorval of Vancouver, British Columbia refers to her work under the White Poppy moniker as "therapeutic pop," and her dreamy, tranquil songs are a perfect accompaniment to an afternoon lying in a warm, open field and releasing all tension. Her blissful compositions consist of layers of hazy guitar, ethereal vocals, and softly pounding electronic drums. Natural Phenomena is her second proper full-length for Not Not Fun, and the sixth White Poppy release overall, including three cassettes and a one-sided 7" single. This album differentiates itself from previous recordings by being less focused on vocals; many of the album's songs feature Dorval's celestial singing, but usually just as a textural element, with only three of them having discernable lyrics. It also seems less centered around dreaming and the subconscious, slightly turning toward more earthly concerns. There's less otherworldly echo than on the astounding Drifters Gold tape, and not as many of the driving rhythms of her self-titled LP. This isn't to say she's gone full-on ambient drone; these are still structured, melodic songs. Even at their most spaced-out, as on the planetarium-ready "Aurora," the songs are still framed by a constantly ebbing rhythmic pulse. Opener "Confusion" features languid yet still alert post-punk bass guitar, and brings back a hint of the Afro-pop influence that was present in Dorval's earlier project My Friend Wallis. Gorgeous ballad "Telepathic Love" feels like a fantastic hybrid of Julee Cruise and Cocteau Twins. "Mermaids" has a similarly stripped-down, aired-out '80s 4AD or Factory feel to it, with bright guitar lines rippling over the song's serene rhythm, bringing to mind Ducktails' early work. Relaxing and inviting, Natural Phenomena is one of Dorval's most rewarding works yet. * How do you grapple with something that isn't there? On her third full-length as White Poppy, Natural Phenomena, Crystal Dorval manages to erase almost all traces of herself. Her voice disappears into the ether with lyrics that are mostly indiscernible ù when there are any at all. The attack of her guitar is blunted and nearly bleached out of existence in reverb and delay systems. And the minimal percussion employed tends to feel more like a kite bobbing along at the end of a tether than anything solid and grounding. To this end, Natural Phenomena reads like further notes on a musical history of disappearance and obfuscation. Roughly one third of the album is made up of lyrically-oriented songs, another third contains wordless vocalizing, and the remaining third is entirely instrumental. Because they aren't divided up into sections as such, it gives a sort of watercolor impression of songs half submerged. The album plays on a rich continuum, with a bass line reminiscent of Blondie's "Tide Is High" and a guitar melody that recalls The Cure. But the song, "Confusion," is something of a red herring: it leaves the listener with a glimpse of something tangible in the album's opening moments, but it trails off into foggy ethereality and an occasional tropical ambience. "Exotic Realms" shamelessly mimics the guitar part from Slowdive's "Crazy For You," and in fact large sections of Natural Phenomena are reminiscent of Pygmalion (and maybe more specifically the bootlegged demos for that album). But even Pygmalion, with its electronic textures and lunar drift, had a graspable emotional core. Here, it's nigh impossible to tell what sentiment Dorval is trying to express, and the song titles do little to create more than vague notions. Meanwhile, the fractals of her sunbaked guitar loops splay out toward an infinite horizon. To paraphrase Robert DeNiro in Goodfellas: "It gives you nothing, so you've got nothing." The most critical thing that can be said of it, for better and for worse, is it's often just another achingly gorgeous example of dreamy music onto which you can project yourself. But my impression is that this is the best White Poppy album so far. Although it superficially resembles both her previous self-titled album and Drifter's Gold enough that I even notched in the same score that our own DeForrest Brown Jr. gave her last time, it seems distilled to a more perfect essence. The listener's own impression of Natural Phenomena may likely hinge on the acceptance of Dorval's techniques or the rejection of them as it trends toward listlessness for those less forgiving in their judgment. But for those of us who have spent time hearing our reflections in other albums of its ilk, White Poppy rewards us again, very slowly yet with plenty of riches. * White Poppy is the creation of Crystal Dorval, a Canadian experimental musician and songwriter hailing from Vancouver Island, BC, but now settled in Vancouver. Her new album, Natural Phenomena, has just been released, and within the listening pleasure is perhaps a longing and nostalgia for nature. If her self-titled debut album was described by Nylon Magazine as containing "sonic beauty" within the angst of a coming of age tale, this latest offering has expanded into a more fully aware aural landscape containing both disturbance and release. As Dorval also is behind the website Sanity Soap, a profoundly moving weblog devoted to mental health awareness, with pieces of description and connection around depression and understanding, perhaps it's no surprise that her music encompasses both anxiety and comfort. The theme of nature that permeates the disc might find its base in White Poppy's original home territory. Vancouver Island is one of the largest Pacific islands, a place of great beauty with a long and fragmented history. Apparently it has a thriving technology sector, as well as being a place where battles over logging and watershed protection are fought, without much success. Perhaps this contrast between what is beautiful and timeless and the encroaching forces of development, which must be especially keen in a place like this, inform the eerily beautiful moments in this music, where both a vague sense of unease and an hypnotic calm repeat until they seep into your consciousness, like a wavelength designed to encourage certain types of brain activity. This is especially true on the track, "Wild Mind", where a buzzy jittery electronic sound is juxtaposed against a delicate background, carrying forward a sense of tension at the beginning, urban nerves invading a natural space. Then the tension is eased out into a repetitive calmer place, until something like a chorus comes along to soothe. And there's "Confusion", the opening track, which contains scarcely discernible words sung in a breathy, ethereal style over the steady beat. "Feeling so strange" the voice sings, as the layers of sound become thicker. Ambient, speaking at first in the background, almost theatrical, then the vocals come in. There's a scrape-y, jittery synth sound that is pleasing against the big hall vocals, part indie, part Enya. There's a kind of island feeling to the trebly sounds. A lot of different textures to hold on to. "Mermaids" starts out at first on an oddly menacing, low beginning. Finally the repetition becomes mesmerizing and brighter, with an ambient electronic atmosphere that builds and expands on layers, keyboard and guitar phrases on top of each other, seemingly giving the effect of a giant fluffy cake that builds to the skies. Then sinking back into itself, echoing, like a wisp of smoke that's been magically inhaled, the song fades away like a dream. Again, something both urban and primitive about this, a song that both seems to find sanctuary in nature while still processing the damage done. The guitar like sound evolves with the synth, each stretching out until there's a cloudburst of treble. The overall feel is reedy and tree like, while the water sparkles nearby on the rocks lining the shore. In "Sublimity", the rhythm is a stronger focus, a stamping beat, still in the ambient world. Then a hollow, wooden tone comes in, and the music is again a mixture of echoing vocals and different layers of sound. White Poppy is very good at creating what might be called trancescape, and the guitar adds a pleasing softness to the buzzy, jittery sounds that are again present. "Exotic Realms" could be electronic bird song in the midst of trees. Or whatever else you might want to imagine. It resonates like deep brain wave music, the contrast between edgy and melodic, repetitive and soothing used to good effect while setting the stage for the vocal stylized echoing sound to come in. Somewhat spooky. "Aurora" begins like a story, rapidly becoming hypnotic. When the almost whale-like calls begin, the electro vibration that shimmers its way through the song answers. Then you slowly become more aware of other sections. It's trance inducing in its intensity, the layers unfolding above the constant steady repetition of the rhythm, ending with something like a fog horn sound mixing with an organ, a vast swell of water and history. Natural Phenomena is evocative music, sounds that at their best pull the listener in to create their own visual imaginings. As a symbol, the white poppy represents peace. As the description on Facebook says, "Let us live in the paradise gardens." The album could be seen as a path created, a way of rediscovering that lost peace of mind for both artist and listener. -=- SHGZ -=- P.S. ** Thanks *** *** BCC FNT IPC SSR *** *** For Knowing Where The Music Is At *** *** Props to CaHeSo, awesome Asian Indie/Shoegaze *** *** And to FANG/HOUND for supporting all the Indie lovers out there *** --===-- ********************* * NuHS we miss you! * *********************