Remi Wolf’s music is a kaleidoscope of sounds. Slinky ’70s and ’80s funk and soul, folksy musings, The Flaming Lips-influenced psychedelic aptitude, and luminous pop hooks are all part of the Palo Alto-born artist’s sonic world. Certainly, her second album, ‘Large Concepts’, musically lives as much as its title. Right here you’re simply as prone to discover funky floor-fillers ready-made for shimmying to at late-night DJ units (‘Slay Bitch’) as stripped-back, folk-inflected reflections on burnout (‘Simply The Begin’) or woozy psych-laced numbers that open with frog croaks (‘Frog Rock’).
The follow-up to her 2021 debut album ‘Juno’, a file NME assessed was “deeply reflective and in-your-face suddenly”, was written throughout two continuous years of touring. These years noticed Wolf constantly on the street away from house, and ‘Large Concepts’ injects the stressed vitality of being on the street into its genre-splicing sounds. As she informed NME not too long ago: “Within the yr of 2022, I had six weeks at house”. Created in a number of distinct chunks each time she was capable of squeeze in studio classes, it illustrates the exhausting rollercoaster that was this time: the complexities of navigating relationships whereas touring, exhaustion and a life in flux all depicted.
On the lilting, acoustic guitar-led ‘Simply The Begin’, a observe written late at night time in a resort room, she muses, “I don’t need to get together/However I don’t actually wanna work/Both method I’ll be lonely, both method I’m cursed”, a damning evaluation of life on the street and the isolation it could convey. On the ’70s indebted ‘Cinderella’, an electrical earworm bolstered by an effervescent bass line and punchy horn part, Wolf evaluates her personal insecurities (“Is there one thing fallacious with the way in which I’m designed?/Can’t discover consolation in something”), earlier than stepping in to supply herself a pep-talk (“Child lady, received’t you dry your eyes?/Don’t stress since you’re doing it proper”).
The fractures {that a} life continually on the street could cause in private relationships are explored, too. On album spotlight ‘Soup’, a observe Wolf went into writing with the intent to “make a tune that sounds prefer it must be performed in an area”, she muses “I can’t assist however make it about me/If you and I are collectively”. It’s a tune that knowingly seems on the push and pull of a partnership, contemplating the dynamics between two individuals once you really feel like “you’re not holding up your finish of the cut price”, as Wolf has defined in a press release in regards to the tune.
The intrigue in ‘Large Concepts’ is how these songs by no means draw back from contradictions or thorny feelings, Wolf’s experiences spun by way of vibrant sonic worlds. It’s a file that – whereas injected with a wholesome dose of groovy enjoyable – is keenly sincere. And though it might be sonically sugar-coated, Wolf’s candid lyrics by no means are. It’s funk-fuelled catharsis.
Particulars:
- Launch date: July 12, 2024
- File label: EMI
