Cholly “IDMY”
A rare talent like Cholly doesn’t come around very often, and if there’s one thing that “IDMY” tells you about the producer/songwriter from High Wycombe is that she is highly underrated. With a stunningly haunting falsetto that stirs longings and nostalgia like Lana Del Rey and an aesthetic like Thom Yorke, “IDMY” sees Cholly facing up her past. Bathing in dark melancholia, the track evolves around the nightmarish haunts of old and bad habits.
“IDMY” is like a spine-chilling gaze that looks through your eyes deep into your soul. Cholly’s vocals are piercingly moving and eerily infectious, but that’s only one of her many talents.
The usual singer-songwriters would gear up with a magnificent producer to create a killer backdrop to elevate the composition, but every spark of sound design and unusual synths you hear came from the brilliant mind of Cholly, who has been obsessed with music since she was 6 years old. Intrigued by sampling and designing organic sounds in her music, the produced laced up “IDMY” with mechanic sensuous synths and swirling sonics. Dark, and cold, but vibrant and retro-imaginative, the electronic pop track really surprises you with its sensuous experimentation that pushes the envelope of the genre.
“IDMY” is taken from Cholly’s debut album Anomaly, which digital downloads are set for April 7 and vinyl out on May 10. Speaking in relation to the single, the artist teases that the album will put her passion for experimentation to the test and sees even more unexpected sonic happenings.
Read our interview to learn more about Anomaly.
Punk Head: I love how epic and immersive "IDMY" is. There are so many things I can praise about this single. What are you most proud of?
Cholly: Every once in a while I imagine an entire song before I make it. It's rare they come out exactly as I had imagined them. “IDMY” is one of those songs.
PH: Without spilling too much, can you tell us a little about your upcoming album? What should we expect?
Cholly: The album is made up of a collection of different sounds. In the first track “Anomaly” I made the synthesizer sounds out of my cat meowing (it was 6 am when I made it, and my cat wanted his breakfast). Another song is made of a sound that a friend sent me—he was staying at a hotel in Swindon and the bathtub was making a strange sound (it's called Swindon Bathtub). The first half of the album is probably what I would consider more “accessible” and then it gets more experimental in the second half.
How would the album be different and similar to what we hear from "IDMY"?
Cholly: Some of the album is a lot more experimental and dramatic sounding compared to “IDMY.” “IDMY” is more electronic pop. Some of the other tracks are more distorted and experimental.
What is your favorite moment in making the music video?
Cholly: It's hard to pick a favorite moment for when we were shooting the music video! There was one point where we had mud in the living room with only bin bags underneath it. This was to set up a fake gravestone and to have my hand coming out of the mud. Mud was going everywhere except the carpet, thankfully! Another part I really enjoyed was visiting a tunnel under the motorway at night. It wasn't lit and it was so unnerving to look at—once you were in the tunnel you couldn't see either end of it. Bringing battery-powered lights was fun because of how dark and creepy the tunnel was.
What is the one thing that you’d like your fans to know about you?
Cholly: I'm not really sure what I'd want people to know about me—maybe that I make all of the music. Quite often, people assume that I am singing and getting other people to produce for me. Another thing would be that I have chronic RSI (repetitive strain injury) that restricts me from playing instruments. I used to play piano for hours every day (for fun), but since 2017, this is something I haven't been able to do because it's too painful. I had to find workarounds to make the music I wanted to make, which is why I use some odd sounds.
“IDMY' is one track from my debut album Anomaly. Anomaly comes out on the 10th of May and will be available on vinyl, thanks to Werra Foxma Records. It'll be available as a digital download on Bandcamp before at a later date (quite a bit later) making it available on streaming services.
Anomaly took me 7 months to make, and I put my heart & soul into it. The whole album revolves around the idea of having expectations of who you should be, whether you are that person and wondering what direction you're even going in. Self-criticism is a big theme throughout. The first half of the album is more accessible and it gets more experimental as it goes on, finishing with “Story”—a 7-minute and 11-second dark progressive electronica track with vocals, guitar, voice messages, violin, and sleep-talk recordings to a changing beat.
I've used all sorts of sounds for the album - for example, my cat meowing makes up most of the synthesizer sounds in the track “Anomaly,” while “Between” is made out of a recording of me hitting a pan with some water in it. A few of the tracks were partially made on my improvised Twitch streams.
