White Poppy - Ataraxia (2024) [Hi-Res]

It feels like Vini Reilly’s hand is on the shoulder of Crystal Dorval in her 6th White Poppy album for Not Not Fun, encouraging her iridescent webs of reverb-tailed psych-pop guitar lines and blushing ambient pads.

“The concept for and palette of Crystal Dorval aka White Poppy’s ‘Paradise Gardens’ trilogy first germinated in 2016 as a notion of “paradise music” combining new age, bedroom shoegaze, and bossa nova into “transcendental Tropicalia.” As she filled tapes of recordings exploring the idea, many of the songs gradually gravitated towards the hermetic dream pop her project is best known for, becoming the albums Paradise Gardens (2020) and Sound Of Blue (2023). Dorval describes these collections as a sort of “emotional purging or shadow work,” before arriving at “the state of inner paradise:” Ataraxia.

As the third, final, and most purist realization of the original ‘Paradise Gardens’ vision, Ataraxia delivers. Nine instrumentals of nimble guitar, elevated bass, clean rhythm, and clear light, gliding like swans on a shimmering pond. There’s a sense throughout of playful tranquility, of serenades at sunset, of kisses of blissful Muzak wafting along a boardwalk. But behind the music is a patience, grace, and levity born of Dorval’s personal journey with spiritual healing that paralleled the trilogy. A process of transmuting pain into beauty, day by day, melody by melody, cleaving the darkness from the soul and re-entering one’s rightful home in the Garden.”



Tracklist:
1-1. White Poppy - Mind Garden (03:27)
1-2. White Poppy - Floral Dreams (03:24)
1-3. White Poppy - Ordinary Magic (04:24)
1-4. White Poppy - Soul Utopia (04:54)
1-5. White Poppy - Swans (02:47)
1-6. White Poppy - Pearl (04:41)
1-7. White Poppy - Himmel (05:33)
1-8. White Poppy - Ataraxia (03:30)
1-9. White Poppy - Kiss Of Peace (03:13)