In the early days of the pandemic, TikTok became a nifty launching pad for up-and-coming musicians anxious to share their craft and break out of obscurity. While some have been majorly successful in catapulting their output from the online world into the real world, like Addison Rae and PinkPantheress, few have been able to actually stand out without getting sucked into the gravitational pull of the algorithm. Isimeme “Naomi” Udu, known primarily by her stage name hemlocke springs, was one such artist who showed immense promise when her songs “girlfriend” and “gimme all ur luv” went viral on the platform in 2022. The former became a popular background sound for all sorts of clips, while the latter attracted the attention and approval of musicians like Grimes, one of Udu’s biggest musical inspirations.
Indeed, Udu’s DIY sound felt like a bubbly Gen-Z bedroom-pop variation of Grimes, yet there was also something quite refreshing, forward-thinking, and unpretentious about her instincts. Her offbeat, cartoon-character aesthetic and refraction of 1980s synth-pop through a 2020s lens positioned her as a cross between Cyndi Lauper and MARINA for the post-digital age, an image realized most vividly on her playful 2023 EP going…going…GONE! Now, three years later, Udu presents a more expansive representation of her brand of whimsy on her debut LP, the apple tree under the sea, which uses her stringent Christian upbringing as a framework for her desire to leave her bubble and venture on a journey of personal and creative self-discovery. Despite the decadent instrumentation and polished arrangements, though, the thematic core of the apple tree under the sea gets a little lost in its unrestrained zig-zagging across different tones and genres.
Perhaps the impulse to experiment is by design, especially given the context of Udu growing up in a strict, religious Nigerian immigrant household. Once you take a bite out of the forbidden apple, the temptation to try everything can come overwhelmingly all at once. But in trying to encompass too many things at once, Udu often ends up biting off more of that apple than she can chew, with the concept-forward approach feeling somewhat labored and overwrought in comparison to the focused flow and easy-breezy charm of “girlfriend” and “gimme all ur luv.” At times, the personality overflow and hodgepodge ambition on display brings to mind Remi Wolf, another talented, emerging indie pop artist whose maximalist tendencies can be compellingly exuberant at best and frustratingly scattered at worst. Udu’s maximalism—in this case, her intertwining of Biblical references with her serpentine range of stylistic choices—is most effective when her seemingly disparate ideas cohere into a sonically and emotionally satisfying whole.
“moses,” for instance, begins with an arresting gospel acapella harmony before slinking into a woozy Matrix-y breakbeat, infusing some futuristic, apocalyptic flair into Udu’s identification with the titular prophet. The peppy, punchy drum fills and baroque-turned-electronic thrum that color “sense(is)” and “w-w-w-w-w” are well-calibrated to Udu’s spirited vocal delivery and high-drama lyrics. Penultimate track “set me free” finds Udu looser and friskier than she’s ever been before, mixing the stuttering, sensual R&B stylings of a Timbaland-produced Aaliyah cut with the humid percussion of a Solange/Blood Orange collab. On top of being the most rewarding offerings musically speaking, these tunes are also Udu’s most revealing in how they reckon with her sheltered ideological conditioning and her current pursuits as an independent adult, whether that’s avoiding the traps of marriage (“I can’t even fathom / Waking up the man on Sunday morning”) or tapping into sexual curiosity (“Lead me into bliss and love me with your lips / Leave me with no words to say”).
For the most part, the apple tree under the sea busies itself with a lot of bells and whistles, some of which scan as intermittently inspired but generally read as overly fussy. “the beginning of the end” evokes early Björk with its eclectic blend of electric guitar, hip-hop, and twee acoustic guitar. And while that combination sounds sweet on paper, the Frankenstein-like execution strains to keep all these elements from connecting. This kind of mad-scientist energy is also present on “head, shoulders, knees and ankles,” whose over-the-top, lopsided production—a jaunty Halloween-esque synth organ, an abrupt mid-song segue into a piano-driven bridge, and a harpsichord outro—gestures at Lady Gaga theatrics to uneven effect (interestingly enough, Gaga producer BURNS had his hand in making this and the rest of the apple tree under the sea). The sparkling, sweeping closer “be the girl!” recalls the electro-pop power ballads of the early aughts, and though Udu’s meditation on leaving behind the old version of herself is an admirable note to close on, the valiant, rousing escalation makes that sincerity feel just a touch too sentimental.
That the apple tree under the sea doesn’t quite meet the sum of its parts is disappointing, but what the album does have going for it furthers Udu’s potential as a distinct alternative voice in the indie-pop music world. Debut albums often act as a conduit through which an artist can get everything out of their system as much as they lay the foundation for more compact, concentrated efforts down the line, and hemlocke springs’ debut certainly represents both sides of that coin. [AWAL]
Sam Rosenberg is a filmmaker and freelance entertainment writer from Los Angeles with bylines in The Daily Beast, Consequence, AltPress and Metacritic. You can find him on Twitter @samiamrosenberg.
