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Music

PREMIERE: White Poppy - "Confusion"

All you need is a forest, a cape, a Flying V and some 8mm film. If the Blair Witch was into shoegaze psych-pop, basically.

White Poppy

began in 2011 when Victoria-native, Crystal Dorval, started playing around with tripped-out loops, fuzz, and her guitars. Dorval's debut psych-pop release,

I Had A Dream

really hooked me on her music, especially after I found out she'd written, recorded, and produced the whole thing herself. White Poppy's sound is totally unique: Everything is stuck in a dream and you're just being carried along with the bass, and Dorval knows how to tackily abuse sound to its fullest potential. Below is the premiere of her video for "Confusion." Shot in a forest in British Columbia on an 8mm camera borrowed from her roommate—c

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ape and Flying-V from sources unknown—

White Poppy's sound here is escapist rock.

"I kept having visions of sort of cheesy rock videos where the guitar player is on a mountain top doing a guitar solo," says Dorval. "I wanted to do something like that, but I think it turned out to not really be cheesy which is kind of cool. The album is called Natural Phenomena, so I wanted the video to showcase the awe for natural beauty. I think the 8mm film makes this video concept look more magical then if it were filmed digitally."

After touring as Mac DeMarco's bassist (way, way before the scrub was famous), forcing herself to do projects where she'd write and record one song a day, and a few more obscure tape releases, Dorval left the city and moved to a farm on Vancouver Island where she wrote most of her forthcoming record.

"My life has changed quite drastically since the last album," Dorval admits. "Most of what was familiar to me then, crumbled away, and I had to rebuild everything up from the bottom. I spent a lot of time and energy focused on healing and rehabilitation. I think I went through a major personal transformation from the last album to this one, and to me it feels like that essence is infused into the music."

Natural Phenomena is out o 6.23 via Not Not Fun Records.