Remember that Burial album cover with the moody character sitting by the window in McDonald’s at night?
This is what I imagine Poppy H to look like.
Their music doesn’t sound alike, but there are some striking similarities.
Both are from London. Both want to remain anonymous. Both make experimental music that could be considered ‘ambient’, and that evokes images of foggy city streets, viewed from the upper deck of a night bus. And while Burial reportedly produced his early masterpieces on a cracked version of SoundForge, Poppy H records, mixes and masters their music on a smartphone.
Poppy H released their debut album Nothing is Perfect, Everything is Perfect last autumn, to acclaim from The Wire. Their second album Grave Era just came out, and it’s even better.
I’ve found myself listening to the warped pianos, found sounds and ghostly voices of Grave Era constantly throughout the dark days of January.
When I first heard this music, I had no idea how it was made. I was surprised to learn about the primitive production methods. Sometimes extreme limitations can lead to an outpouring of creativity.
Listening to these unsettling lo-fi beats, I feel reminded of the ‘Isolationism’ movement in the mid-1990s. At that time, ambient music – mostly in the form of trip-hop and downbeat – suddenly popped up in car commercials and on cheesy coffee-table compilations.
In an effort to reclaim and expand the genre, Kevin Martin (alias The Bug) coined the ‘Isolationism’ term in an article for, you guessed it, The Wire. In 1994, he curated the groundbreaking compilation Ambient 4: Isolationism, a journey through the dark side of the genre.
Though released on the major label Virgin Records, this ‘asocial music’ wasn’t meant to invite people – and definitely not to trick them into mindless background consumption –, but rather to push those away who weren’t interested in listening deeply.
The music of Poppy H would have fit right in with Martin’s vision of Isolationism, and we’re actually facing a similar – if not worse – situation today.
The mid- to late 2010s saw the so-called ambient boom. Some great records were (re-)discovered and surfaced by artists, journalists, even algorithms. During the COVID years, the market was flooded with generic lo-fi beats to study to, 31-second rainfall tracks, exchangeable synth drones and other ‘functional music’. Ambient turned into a synonym for ‘capitalist productivity music’ (Huerco S.).
Grave Era is an antithesis to all of that. To quote the Bandcamp blurb, these tunes are dispatches from “a world where overpriced flat whites and skinny lattes are served against a rolling backdrop of death, destruction and displacement”.
The person behind the Poppy H project agreed to answer a few questions. You will find the transcript, slightly edited for readability, below.
There’s no biographical information on your site. How much are you willing to share about the person behind Poppy H?
There was a time when I was very online, as myself, sharing way too much, but the only way I’ve finally been able to free myself musically is to erase all that and hide behind the shield of a pseudonym publicly. It’s made me care far less about how my releases are viewed. Besides, the vast majority of people I was connected with previously would have no interest in my output. So, I started all over again and it has been liberating. Poppy H comes from my granddad who I never met. His name was Gordon, which is my middle name, but everyone knew him as Poppy. The ‘H’ is the initial of my mum’s maiden name. I’d love to know what he’d make of my music.
What music did you grow up listening to? Which records or artists have influenced you deeply?
I was lucky enough to grow up in a house full of music. And mostly very good music at that. My step-dad was in bands. My parents listened to music endlessly. They still do. I associate my childhood mostly with Motown – my mum’s favourite band remains Four Tops. I vividly recall bright summer days with Carole King and Nina Simone blaring from the stereo. Then there were the unmistakable East End working class influences: Chas & Dave was a constant, with zero irony. As a family we saw them live on a couple of occasions. “One Step Beyond” by Madness is a time machine track for me too.
In terms of influences, they range far and wide: from the sublime scuzz of Operation Ivy and Dinosaur Jr. that my older brother first got me into, to the UK garage my younger brother was spinning and my own journeys through so-called ‘grunge’, classical, jazz, dubstep... in between all that, I tend to obsess over individual outsider artists that become mine, if you get my meaning. David Ackles, Alice Clark, Lewis Baloue, and Sodastream to name just a few that span genres.
Then there are specific tracks in my brain jukebox: “Telstar” by The Tornados – an old instrumental song that was for some reason on my Commodore 64. I wrote some love song lyrics to it and recorded my performance. I always had some little project like that on the go when young. Ben Watt’s “Another Conversation With Myself” does things to me emotionally that virtually no other song can – but MONO’s “Mopish Morning, Halation Wiper” comes close, as does Gorecki’s Symphony No.3. This Mortal Coil mean the world to me, Björk is a treasure, and Angelo Badalamenti is spun on the regular.
More recently, I’ve enjoyed and been inspired by Niecy Blues, Daniel Bachman – as good a person as he is a musician –, Laurel Halo, Matana Roberts, Dean Blunt, Charlie Megira. Mabe Fratti is excellent. Tineke Postma’s 2023 album “Aria” is great. I enjoyed Jazmine Sullivan’s Heaux Tales. I’m no expert but I like just about every Amapiano record I’ve heard. I crave more music from Serpente, continue to adore Hailu Mergia, look forward to every Colin Stetson release and consider Iceboy Violet one of the most unique and essential voices out there, while Sarah Mary Chadwick is wild, brilliant and unsung.
Sorry, I could talk about influences forever and a day.
When and how did you start making music? Did you have training on any instruments?
I have no formal training – this will come as no surprise to anyone who hears my stuff –, but I have muddled through over the years teaching myself drums, guitar, piano and most recently clarinet and violin. These all feature to varying degrees across my two records to date.
When I was seven years old, I was attending my second of three primary schools, when one day our class were ushered into a room where a stranger sat at a piano. Each of us in turn was asked to have a go on it. Being from a working class background and it being a bit of a rough school, there likely wouldn’t have been a child among us who’d played a piano before. I recall feeling quite at home tapping away but thought nothing more of it. A few days later, the school gave me a cello based upon my supposedly impressive showing on the piano.
To this day, I am slightly baffled by the disconnect between promising piano skills and being given a huge stringed instrument. The cello couldn’t have been more out of place in our house and I was given no formal training, just ‘there you go, here’s a cello, good luck’. Unsurprisingly, my relationship with it didn’t last long at all. Shame, I love cello. But I have since learnt that if you’ve got melodies in your head and heart you can usually translate them somehow through absolutely any instrument. I nearly fainted in a charity shop trying to get a sound out of a clarinet, but I bought it and recorded some stuff with it a couple of hours after getting home. What a privilege to have musical instruments.
Do you consider yourself a part of a scene or community of musicians in London?
There is definitely a solid community of experimental artists, labels, writers, DJs, venues and listeners. I’ve shuffled into the corner of the room as the new boy with my weird tunes and have been genuinely overwhelmed by how welcoming most people have been. Yourself included. I say this completely honestly and truthfully, I didn’t think a single other person, besides my closest mates, would listen to my music, at least not more than once. The response and kindness has really spurred me on and I now create knowing that someone might have a listen if I put something out that I’m proud of. If I ever work out how to play my stuff live, I would love to play alongside some of the amazing experimental artists out there – meeting them alone would be a buzz.
Which instruments did you employ on Grave Era?
I used a Korg Volca Sample for some of the beats and sound effects, my dusty old Micro Korg for synth sounds, a Roland Juno DS for piano, synth and drums, a battered Epiphone SG – with top E missing – in its given purpose as a guitar and as a bass, switching the recordings down a few octaves in the mix, a very old three quarter length acoustic guitar and a child’s accordion. Everything was recorded out of an old and shit amp, next to my phone. Vocals and field recordings were also captured on my phone out and about – no external mic – across London and the east coast of England, in my kitchen, next to building sites and in my car when I pulled over to record vocals. I like the sound within a stationary car.
The way I make music is by improvising something on one of the above instruments – could be any one of them to kick things off – a beat, a piano melody, a pulsating synth rhythm, a fingerpicked guitar bit. That then forms the basis of the piece that is then dovetailed in and out of by other instruments. Every now and then the very first instrument track will be binned entirely, but it has done a job in setting the tone. I work incredibly quick, probably too quick, but what I’m fighting against is self-doubt, over-thinking and inauthenticity creeping in. It has to flow for me – then I move on. Working in this way, I don’t know I have an album until I take stock and have a moment of surprise, ‘well, what do you know, I think I have an album there – who knew?!’
A fair percentage of every track on the record was mixed on walks with my dog. Seriously. My job is pretty full-on, so I have to rely on any stolen moment. So it’s out into the countryside with my insane Romanian rescue, dog mixing as we go. It makes a tricky process even harder but it demands a different kind of focus that gives way to ideas I might not have tapped into if I was just sat at home. I like letting life and human elements and failure into the music.
You’re capturing sound via an openly recording phone, and you’re mixing and mastering on the same device. Why do you choose this ultra lo-fi approach, and how does it relate to – quoting from your Bandcamp blurb – ‘proud working class sensibilities that are challenged and contradicted’?
The two things are intrinsically linked. In the main, I had a happy childhood, but there was also some element of making do. My mum has always been hugely creative, though not professionally, and would be great at improvising and overcoming challenges that some families might be able to throw money at. It was, perhaps like a lot of working class upbringings, a fuss-free childhood in that sense – that is, crack on with things, no dramas, don’t complain and make the best of what you’ve got. I’m not saying that is entirely a good mindset or message but that was how it was.
That culture of enforced creativity has subconsciously encouraged me to look at what I have available to me and draw on those materials for inspiration – I actively said to myself ‘what is the simplest, cheapest way of achieving something I’m happy with?’ and here I am. Recording everything into the phone is very lo-fi and it’s not everyone’s cup of tea – the title of the debut album [Nothing Is Perfect, Everything Is Perfect] is drawn from that notion. This is my perfect, even though I know some people can’t get past the imperfections.
I recycle material and layer beats and melodies from separate sessions. Sometimes this means elements may be out of sync or key. I love that, it sounds right to me, but some people can’t abide it. I think there’s a pedantry to this and liken it to some people’s feelings toward spelling mistakes: if I write to you and say a poor review ‘effected me really badly’ – in spite of my typo you’d get my meaning, my story and my feeling, but some people refuse to look past the blemish. In music, if there’s a bum note, a clipped mix, a bit of background noise it can be a real turn off. Not so for me – bring on the human side of music. This also speaks to taught music compared to music that comes solely from feeling, improv and flying by the seat of your untutored pants – of course the two can co-exist but I get a real kick out of music that isn’t quite right. You can’t, and probably shouldn’t teach that stuff.
I challenge my working class status because I don’t know if I can call myself working class now, having carved out a decent career from scratch and earning alright money. I feel this weird guilt. Then I think ‘fuck that’, ambition and earning money should be open to all. I should add, we were never destitute, we were a white family on the outskirts of England’s capital. Mine isn’t a rags-to-riches story at all, but my mum was a cleaner, my stepdad a plumber, on call-out through the night at points, and they took on lodgers for extra cash. They worked incredibly hard like working class families do. I remain proudly working class in my own head.
On the new record I can be heard entering coffee shops, ordering ridiculously priced drinks and pastries. Sonically, the rumbles and shocking steam of the coffee machines, the beeps of the card payment machines and the pleasantries – with grim Gaza and Ukraine headlines staring back at us – depresses me. I should say, let’s all enjoy overpriced coffee, let’s have a lovely time in cafes and all that, but I try to remind myself that this isn’t everyone’s experience of the real world. Someone somewhere is paying the price. It's a complicated thing, but what is simple is the reality that families are being unjustly slaughtered and displaced – this much I do know.
In the blurb to your first album, you’re recounting a surreal dream of an accident that takes your mother’s life. It appears to me, as if music might serve a therapeutic function for you. Can music and art make an ugly world slightly more bearable, if just for a brief period?
Yeah, that dream about my mum dying and turning into two lion statues is my earliest memory. As the spoken word lyric goes, I’ve dreamt it ever since. What a mad image to live with from such a young age. No wonder I went on to embrace such weird shit in TV, film, and music. You’re spot on – making and listening to music and long-distance running are my therapy, though I probably should have a dose of traditional therapy at some point. I create music obsessively, it keeps the wolf from the door. If I’m not making music, I’m listening to it or talking about it. Making music on my phone with in-ear headphones has recently led to tinnitus and I now have this fear that I will lose my hearing altogether, not least because I had issues with my ears when young.
Anyway, I totally agree with your suggestion that music and art can make things more bearable. They are essential forms of communication, expression, protest and just pure entertainment. My county council have just announced 100% cuts to arts spending and I feel totally helpless after years of a, quite frankly, evil, racist and feckless Conservative government. And don’t get me started on our great hope, the Labour government who look set to take office. What a huge disappointment. Sorry for getting on my soapbox but this does all lead back to your question. It is an ugly world and fantastic music ventures are on a life support machine. The closure of London venue Iklectik is yet another kick in the balls for grass roots experimental music. We’re being stripped of our cultural spaces and it’s hard to see how it can be turned around at this point.
Grave Era lends a sound to the feeling of living in an age of descent. Where do you find the small glimpses of hope that you inserted into the album?
I was definitely in a fairly consistently dark place. I’ve worked in residential care, at homeless shelters and for a Muslim charity, and I have seen first-hand severe poverty across continents, but through this work I also met some of the purest hearts on both sides of the support work and I regularly remind myself that there are still more good people than bad in the world. It sounds trite and it doesn’t do any good for anyone who is fucked by circumstances and the system but in terms of hope, it’s worth reminding ourselves of every now and then.
The track “Shahid and Irfan” is set across London, Mali and Pakistan and recalls my working visit to the latter two locations – juxtaposed with ghettoised London where I was born. The track opens ominously with duelling bass parts and yells and construction work heard on a field recording but I wanted some hope to bleed in through the extended melancholy piano melody – it’s kind of sad but hopefully hopeful, I hope. It sort of reminds me, weirdly, of Sesame Street or the music of Ernest Hood. I’m not comparing myself to the great Ernest Hood but he is another influence. I guess some of these tracks are somewhat a wander through Hood’s Neighbourhoods… under heartless global governments.
Your first two albums appeared in a relatively brief time span of a few months – were you sitting on these recordings for a while? Do you have more material ready?
As I say, I work incredibly quickly – helped by my instantaneous production process and the fact that I am currently full of ideas and inspiration. The debut album took me a month and half from first note to release. As soon as it was out, I started work on Grave Era and that was completed in about the same time. Funnily enough, I do have another album good to go and I think I can say that it will also be coming out on Cruel Nature, which already feels like home, as long as they’re willing to have me. The third album will be something of a departure from the previous two. I actually had a lot of fun making it and I hope the good people who have found any value in my previous output will give it a listen when it comes out.
Media Diet
Listening: Astrid Sonne – Great Doubt (2024)
The Danish-born, London-based artist celebrates a breakthrough on her outstanding third solo album. With its unpretentious vocals, lo-fi production techniques and experimental songwriting, Great Doubt reminds me of Tirzah and Mica Levi’s quirky art school pop. It’s definitely Sonne’s most personal and courageous album to date – just 27 minutes long, but with a high replay value. The composer and violist opened up on her career and the album process in this long-form interview with Tone Glow.
Reading: Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing (2012)
Creative writing non-fiction that sounds like existentialist poetry. As a writer, I’ve felt truly inspired by this book. The former New York Times editor, non-fiction author and professor advocates for sentences that say just what you want to say – and nothing else.
Watching: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Cemetery of Splendour (2015)
The celebrated indie director is known for his poetic, slow, and mysterious movies. Like many of his films, Cemetery of Splendour is set in rural Thailand. The soldiers in a small military hospital are suffering from an unknown illness which leaves them in a sleep coma, from which they randomly awake at times. Turns out this might have something to do with an ancient site buried underneath the temporary clinic…
OH YES this was incredible! On my way to explore the music.
Another very cool find: thanks !