- AWAL
- 2026
Isimeme "Naomi" Udu’s transition into pop escapism reads like a Sword In The Stone-style awakening. Complete, otherworldly artistry was never her plan. While pursuing a master’s in medical informatics at Dartmouth, Udu procrastinated by messing around on Logic. Mid-2022, under the random name-generated moniker hemlocke springs, she haphazardly uploaded projects online and deleted them soon after out of sheer nervousness. That is, until some tracks started to draw listeners in with their immediate playfulness. There was “gimme all ur love,” doo-woppy new wave filtered through Grimes-esque cosmica, and then “girlfriend,” with its starry-eyed hyperness falling somewhere between the B-52s and Cyndi Lauper.
Then, in 2023, came the mighty “sever the blight.” In under a minute, we’re zapped into a gripping odyssey: a magical forest ravaged by storm, a damsel in distress waiting for love to break the spell. “Love is miles away,” Udu sings, her voice ascending to the heavens. “Will I still wait here for you?” Like Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights," it lives in the past but feels forwardly innovative for its pop artistry. Spritely bird chirps give way to ominous orchestral strings; massive synth chords align with scene-setting horns. It’s like being spellbound in a pop-up book. It's unexpected. It’s weird. It’s catchy with a chorus that has the suspense of a sneeze. The medieval ‘80s synth-driven anthem set up hemlocke springs as portal-opening pop artist, rather than a grad student trying to kill time.
Worrisomely, a few months later when Udu released her debut EP going…going…Gone!, her strongest single was nowhere to be found. Many Reddit popheads — fans that would later become her Lockets — agreed that withholding her strongest single to date was a missed opportunity for Udu. In retrospect, it wasn't. Nearly three years since its release, “sever the blight” has a home on Udu’s debut album the apple tree under the sea — an avant-pop oeuvre that conjures the formidable magnetism of early Lady Gaga and world-building emotion of Kate Bush or Annie Lennox. “sever the blight” was a window into hemlocke springs’ world, but the apple tree under the sea is the actual gateway.
On the apple tree under the sea, hemlocke springs carries the torch of pop artists as vivid storytellers. Her debut is a concise 10 tracks that each sound as colorful and vibrant as the cotton candy galaxy wigs Udu dyes herself. She has skill for catching sticky melodies and playing dress-up with holographic glitter synths (“be the girl!”) or arpeggios dramatic as a feather boa (“the beginning of the end,” “head, shoulders, knees and ankles”). The songs are big, but the sonic nods are vast: "set me free" recalls Timbaland's reign during the 2000s but is then sprinkled with a big of Enya in he middle; "be the girl!" balances the sugary 2010s synth-pop of CHVRCHES and Robyn with the saccharine sing-songy jubilance of a Disney ride. Alongside collaborator BURNS — who has worked with the likes of Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Britney Spears — Udu produces music with an infinite sense of wonder and writes songs with relentless curiosity.
The twist, turns, and drama of the apple tree under the sea don’t make it an “easy” pop listen. This is a very good thing. The album is an exciting and unexpected ride. It begins with an ominous hymn that sets up hemlocke springs’ transformative quest. “Lately, red apples are tasty/ They render all my sanity,” she sings on sparse opener “the red apple.” That fruit of temptation and knowledge lead her into vast territory: hiking through pop-punk mountains, navigaing fierce seas of breakbeats, and crossing countless 2010s pop bridges. Similarly, Udu’s playful instinct is equally demonstrated with how she uses her voice. Hushed tones and performative erraticism abound. Udu approaches her songwriting experimentations the way a toddler with a Pixy Stix sugar-high approaches a box of crayons and a blank page.
When you think of fairytales, magic and pixie dust come to mind, but beneath their otherworldly magnetism lie difficult lessons and often uncomfortable or violent truths. the apple tree under the sea leans into that turmoil, applying the tone of a heroic journey to every song. hemlocke springs toys with age-old narrative tropes, molding them like Play-Doh to reflect her strict Christian upbringing in Concord, North Carolina. “This album starts with a character going through the desert who says, ‘I’m going to do your will.’ They could be saying it to God or a man, but then they come across the apple. It’s about me being in this bubble, and realizing that being in that bubble was tougher than I thought, and then finally getting out and exploring who I really am.”
The result is a full-length that functions as pop escapism while also standing as a definitive artistic debut, blending the grandiosity of ABBA, the melodrama of Tears For Fears, and hemlocke springs’ own lyrical sophistication (she makes it seem silly that words like "tenebrous," "vexation," or "cholor" haven't been used in synth-pop before) to create a vibrant pop world that brings clarity to her personal reality. Yet the shimmer is rooted in real tension and unease — proof that the apple tree under the sea understands the oldest fairytale truth of all: Transformation is never painless, but that doesn't make it any less worthy of wonder.
the apple tree under the sea is out 2/13 via AWAL. Pre-order here.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Charli XCX's Wuthering Heights
• Angel Du$t's Cold 2 The Touch
• Cardinals' Masquerade
• Danny L Harle's Cerulean
• Jill Scott's To Whom This May Concern
• PONY's Clearly Cursed
• Converge's Love Is Not Enough
• Remember Sports' The Refrigerator
• The Paranoid Style's Known Associates
• Wet Tuna's Vast
• Brent Faiyaz's Icon
• Ransom, Boldy James, & Nicholas Craven's Salvation For The Wicked
• August Ponthier's Everywhere Isn’t Texas
• Mumford & Sons' Prizefighter
• Dream Fatigue's No Requiem
• Chet Faker's A Love For Strangers
• Boy Golden’s Best Of Our Possible Lives
• Felsmann + Tiley's Protomensch
• congratulations' Join Hands
• Ásgeir's Julia
• The Nude Party's Look Who's Back
• Katzin's Buckaroo
• The Lone Bellow's What A Time To Be Alive
• Nu Vision's The Seed
• Department's Audacity Files
• Elise Trouw's The Diary Of Elon Lust
• Momoko Gill's Momoko
• Paul Anka's INSPIRATIONS OF LIFE AND LOVE
• Middleman's Following The Ghost
• Tyler Halverson's In Defense Of Drinking
• Story Of The Year's A.R.S.O.N. (All Rage, Still Only Numb)
• Mariachi El Bronx's Mariachi El Bronx IV
• The Olympians' In Search Of A Revival
• Placid Angles' Canada
• Caroline Jones' Good Omen
• Yellow Days' Rock And A Hard Place
• Gogol Bordello's We Mean It, Man!
• Neba Solo & Benego Diakité's A Djinn And A Hunter Went Walking
• Worm's Necropalace
• Aaron Shaw's And So It Is
• WRABEL's Up Above
• MAY-A's Goodbye (If You Call That Gone)
• Ms Banks' SOUTH LDN LOVER GIRL
• SUPERWORLD's Super World
• XBYRDX's Anthems For The End Times
• Various Artists' Quantum Sound
• Hoaxed's Death Knocks
• The Ant Band's From Genesis To Reimagination
• Melissa Aldana's Filin
• Last Dinosaurs' Wellnxss
• Concrete Sun's the mundane uncanny
• Stetson, Fox & Dunn's Nethering
• Ishmael Ali's Burn The Plastic, Steal The Copper
• Earth Tongue's Dungeon Vision
• Unchosen Ones' Divine Power Flowing
• Hazel City's goblynmarkytt
• Giallo's Tenebrarum
• The Infamous Stringdusters' 20/20
• Feller's Sound Colored Penny
• Wall Of Voodoo's Museums
• Hauser's The Swan
• femtanyl's MAN BITES DOG
• joyride!'s joyride and friends!
• Larry Fleet's Another Year Older
• FENG's Weekend Rockstar
• Various Artists' GOAT Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
• Tobacco's High On Life 2 (Original Game Soundtrack) Vol. 1
• Lauren Spencer Smith's THE ART OF BEING A MESS (Deluxe)
• The Beach Boys’ We Gotta Groove: The Brother Studio Years
• Huggy Bear's Basic Strategies For Going Out: Peel Sessions
• Velocity Girl’s ¡Simpatico! (Remastered And Expanded)
• Troye Sivan's Blue Neighbourhood - Ten Years On
• Rockabye Baby's Lullaby Renditions Of Backstreet Boys
• Organ Tapes' 一包烟 EP
• Sarah Kinsley's Fleeting EP
• flyingfish’s second attempt EP
• Thomas Dollbaum's Drive All Night EP
