Album Review: Remi Wolf, ‘Big Ideas’

Remi Wolf wears her quirkiness, heart, and influences all on her sleeve. The combination is what set her idiosyncratic brand of alt-pop apart on 2019’s You’re A Dog! EP, and no artist in the genre could quite match the vibrancy and maximalism of her Airbnb-recorded debut, Juno. Although she tracked its follow-up in studios like New York City’s famed Electric Lady and polishes up her sound accordingly, she’s quick to prove her music has lost none of its upbeat charm (or offbeat humour), kicking off the album with the exuberant ‘Cinderella’ – and it’s no surprise, given she’s reuniting with longtime producer and collaborator Jared Solomon. But she’s also intent on showing there’s more to her songwriting than the eccentric playfulness that became her trademark early on, foregrounding the emotion that could get lost in Juno’s impressive shapeshifting.

“We can lay around/ Exploring the big ideas,” Wolf sings on ‘Kangaroo’, typical of the way she can present her grand ambition in a casually down-to-earth manner. But those ideas aren’t cerebral so much as things you feel in your chest: “love, lust, anger, fantasies, harsh realities, vices, low lows and high highs,” she lists down in press materials. Swinging between moods can make an album feel uneven, but Wolf is more than capable of capturing that dizziness in the span of a single song, making it look fun on ‘Cinderella’, where her shifting attitudes are but colours of the rainbow. Even as Wolf broadens her palette, she avoids dulling her sound by staying true to that character and the anxiousness that defines it: flaunting her roaring voice through the breezy disco of ‘Toro’, allowing its bravado to carry the yearning behind the glistening synthpop of ‘Soup’.

Written and recorded during breaks from touring, Big Ideas feels like an escape from life on the road as well as a direct product of it. It’s a potentially alienating prospect for those of us who may not relate to those particular ups and downs, but it never feels overly self-serious or distasteful. Her view of the isolation and busyness of growing fame is chaotic, yes, and you can hear the toll it takes on the impassioned ‘Alone in Miami’, but it’s also fascinatingly odd: the sound of crypto bros and hotel lobbies, Timberlake and German techno. Wolf hardly tries to fit in, naturally stands out, and often is caught up in a world all her own. On ‘Motorcyle’, she counters her own restlessness with the shimmery daydream of sharing a seemingly normal life with a lover, one she wakes up from a little too soon.

Those big ideas keep the record lively and engaging, but they can also feel muddled. The psychedelic experimentation on ‘Cherries and Creams’ drowns out part of the genuine sweetness of the song, while ‘When I Thought of You’ tries a little too much to mirror a similar kind of romantic rush. But this lack of inhibition also leads to highlights like ‘Wave’, a gratifying epic you can imagine Wolf singing in an arena – which is funny considering one of its most audible lines is “phone sex, graffiti porn.” Wolf doesn’t really lay (and quiet) down her cluttered thoughts in an intelligible manner until the acoustic lo-fi closer ‘Just the Start’, which could have felt like an afterthought if it weren’t so succinct and bracing in its vulnerability. “Yeah I call myself an artist and sometimes I think it’s true,” she begins, fumbling before starting over again, weighing the implications of that truth with each verse. “The thing about the chase is it plagues the human race,” she concludes; and if she’s plaguing you with her big ideas, it’s hoping there’s some chance you’ll catch a small part of yourself in them, too.

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Remi Wolf wears her quirkiness, heart, and influences all on her sleeve. The combination is what set her idiosyncratic brand of alt-pop apart on 2019’s You’re A Dog! EP, and no artist in the genre could quite match the vibrancy and maximalism of her...Album Review: Remi Wolf, 'Big Ideas'