Trip Poppies

Still Living in the Garden of Eden – Trip Poppies
The Trip Poppies have produced a veritable forest of an album filled with a multitude of sonic creatures. The cover art gives a clue to the music – some dense and complex foliage populated with some jungle folk reaching and looking out. Turnover the cover and we get a rainbow, kombi van, cup of tea and a flying pig and my listening stage has been set.
The 12 songs on the album traverse a range of styles and textures. I hear influences like Zappa, Steely Dan, Sly and the Family Stone, Beach Boys, and some pre-Ziggy Bowie. The instrumentation is complex but generally the arrangements and mix handle the sonic riches well. Regular textures such as vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass and drums are augmented by percussion, flute, trumpets, string sounds, synths and field recordings. Sometimes the foreground seems cluttered, for example there are multiple instruments soloing in a somewhat unrelated way. However I really appreciated the variations in texture within songs.
Highlights are Greg Samuelson’s very sweet ‘Paralysed Again’, a strong song well complemented by a supportive arrangement featuring strings and trumpet. Ditto Samuelson and Dez Hoy’s, ‘Rainbow Café’, which grows from acoustic guitar, rhodes and vocals to a packed anthemic singalong with flute and distorted guitar. But the standout track for me is ‘Nocturnal in the Brain’. The subtle lead vocal treatment really makes the track hang together and Dan Brown’s bass part is a wonderful rollicking 3 bar phrase (see the transcription – and before you tell me you can’t play a low C on the bass ask Dan how he did it, or if indeed it is a low C! – 5 string bass maybe?). This is a great example of how things don’t always have to happen in 4 bar phrases and a great exercise for practicing hammer-ons on the bass. Use the open strings where possible - it goes at about 135bpm.
- Village Journal

Still Living in the Garden of Eden – Trip Poppies
The Trip Poppies have produced a veritable forest of an album filled with a multitude of sonic creatures. The cover art gives a clue to the music – some dense and complex foliage populated with some jungle folk reaching and looking out. Turnover the cover and we get a rainbow, kombi van, cup of tea and a flying pig and my listening stage has been set.
The 12 songs on the album traverse a range of styles and textures. I hear influences like Zappa, Steely Dan, Sly and the Family Stone, Beach Boys, and some pre-Ziggy Bowie. The instrumentation is complex but generally the arrangements and mix handle the sonic riches well. Regular textures such as vocals, guitars, keyboards, bass and drums are augmented by percussion, flute, trumpets, string sounds, synths and field recordings. Sometimes the foreground seems cluttered, for example there are multiple instruments soloing in a somewhat unrelated way. However I really appreciated the variations in texture within songs.
Highlights are Greg Samuelson’s very sweet ‘Paralysed Again’, a strong song well complemented by a supportive arrangement featuring strings and trumpet. Ditto Samuelson and Dez Hoy’s, ‘Rainbow Café’, which grows from acoustic guitar, rhodes and vocals to a packed anthemic singalong with flute and distorted guitar. But the standout track for me is ‘Nocturnal in the Brain’. The subtle lead vocal treatment really makes the track hang together and Dan Brown’s bass part is a wonderful rollicking 3 bar phrase (see the transcription – and before you tell me you can’t play a low C on the bass ask Dan how he did it, or if indeed it is a low C! – 5 string bass maybe?). This is a great example of how things don’t always have to happen in 4 bar phrases and a great exercise for practicing hammer-ons on the bass. Use the open strings where possible - it goes at about 135bpm.
- Village Journal