GrimRock
I have listened to Cholly for a while now and Anomaly is a stand out that everyone has to give a listen to! From the first track to the last track it is a great album to hear over an over again!
Favorite track: Story.
The Zoomers (Fan Account)
Darkly atmospheric and punchy production with dazzling sample work, unsettlingly confessional lyricism; such a banger! Buy it!
Favorite track: Polymorphic.
Of all the releases from Werra Foxma to date, nothing quite hits like Anomaly, the debut album from Cholly.
Not only is it as close to contemporary pop as the label has ever flown, Anomaly is a sonic tour de force, and a massive stake-in-the-ground statement from the brilliant mind of Chloe Tennant.
It is borderline unfair to the rest of us mortals how talented she is.
I discovered Cholly (real name Chloe Tennant) performing on a Virtual Electronic Music Open Mic (VEMOM) livestream on Twitch during lockdown. What I noticed immediately was her instinctive talent for improvising on the fly, but unlike 99% of the producers and live performers in the EMOM scene, she was using her voice to feed directly into Ableton Live, and chopping and manipulating her voice into percussion, pad sounds and all sorts of spellbinding effects.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and hearing. Once her set ended, I caught out her recent releases on Bandcamp, which only confirmed that I had stumbled across someone with some serious skills at her disposal.
Some artists and bands never connect with you. Some reel you in slowly and never let you out of their clutches. Some make an immediate impact but dissipate from memory as quickly as they entered it. And then there are the real rare artists who leave an impact on you upon hearing them for the first time, and you become utterly addicted through their brilliance, championing them to anyone who will listen.
It is clear to anyone with ears that work that Anomaly is a very special record. Complex yet direct, infectious and energetic. it is a masterclass in the modern art of sampling. Far from being an Avalanches for the 2020's, Anomaly is more like a dance-pop reinvention of Spooky's 1996 album 'Found Sound', where no kitchen drawer, crockery, or household pet is safe from being miked up. To echo the title of a recent Orb album, no sounds are out of bounds.
"If I can hear an idea in it, I’ll use it" Reflects Chloe, when discussing her 'Anything Goes' sampling policy. "A lot of people around me are obsessed with clean sounds. Perfect sounds. And I felt like this approach was projected onto me a bit, and this is how I should do things. It just took me a while to release that this is just not how I work, and I enjoy things a lot more if I’m not trying to do what they’re doing."
What's even more astonishing is Chloe's ear for a tune. Any producer can harvest samples and sounds from their immediate surroundings. Not everyone can use these found sounds and make seriously addictive electronic pop.
Being an amazing singer no doubt helps, but it is the songwriting on show that puts Chloe in a very elite group of artists. The title track is such a statement of intent, but the depth of work on show is borderline farcical. IDMY. CIrcles. Polymorphic. White, Beige, Magnolia. Between. And the utterly epic album closer, Story. There are no weaknesses on Anomaly. You could choose 7 of the 9 tracks as singles. As debut electro-pop albums go, Anomaly is as strong as it gets.
credits
released May 10, 2023
All tracks written, recorded and produced by Cholly.
Mixing by Conor Amos.
Mastered by Antony at RedRedPaw.
Design by Zoë Jackson and BMH Arthouse.
Special thanks to Alucard the cat (Anomaly), Lucas (Swindon Bathtub) and Khalin (Anomaly, Story) for providing samples.
Experimental electronic pop artist sourcing sound design ideas from the sonic ether. Cholly alchemises all tones and timbres that strike her curiosity into pulsing electronica, wistful future garage and lo-fi art-pop grooves.
It’s a varied collection of tracks, forming a cohesive whole. At turns it is playful, sinister, woozy, and futuristic. But always fascinating and compelling. Great electronica! harlech1
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