The Garden Dream is the full-length debut of
gglum, the performance alias of London's
Ella Smoker, a songwriter who started making home eight-track recordings in her teens inspired by alternative artists like
Elliott Smith,
the Microphones and
Phil Elverum,
Adrianne Lenker and
Big Thief, and
Alex G. Along with their intimate dispositions, she was drawn to the experimental tendencies and layered sonics of some of these acts (and others). Without sounding especially like any of the above, she stayed true to these descriptions on early EPs that landed her a deal with
Secretly Canadian for her first album. It marks her second time working with a producer and first with
Karma Kid. The 35-minute, 13-track set opens with an example of contrasting smallness and largeness in the form of "With You," whose strummed acoustic guitar and wispy vocal melody are eventually joined by electric strums and bass, then squeals of feedback, full drums, and a denser, keyboard-assisted wall of sound. All the while,
Smoker serves up sweetly delivered, conditional reassurances like "I'm sick of your face/But I love it anyway." She continues to alternate sparer passages with lusher and blown-out sounds throughout
The Garden Dream, as its short songs grapple with relationships, dreams, and nightmares. Along the way, the charming "Honeybee" is a solo demo replete with background activity, she embraces darker, grungier tones (and accordion) on the insecure "Eating Rust," and she approaches '90s alternative radio territory with the midtempo "Glue." Throughout its twists and turns and simple hooks,
The Garden Dream sometimes seems like it's trying a little bit of everything, at least within certain design parameters, to see what clicks, while exceling at more sincere moments like "Pruning 2," which combines brittle vocals, arpeggiated acoustic guitar, light, ghostly shimmer, and thrumming bass, and the similarly textured duet "Do You See Me Different?" featuring London bedroom pop artist
Kamal. This heterogeneity is not so far removed from someone like
Alex G, so
gglum may already be onto something, but taken alone, it feels like a taste of what's to come. ~ Marcy Donelson
