Daisy Ray - Shelly

Album

5 Jun

Daisy Ray's debut album on the immaculately oddball Heat Crimes imprint is a gorgeous amalgamation of dulcet folk music and trippy electronic experiments. The whole project has an undercurrent of psychedelic exploration as Daisy Ray builds these highly evocative and sometimes dissonant atmospheres. Daisy Ray pays perfect tribute to the original experimentalists, such as the essential Tropping Gristle. Her enigmatic energy is on full display with Shelly (2024). It twists and turns through avant-garde experiments, folk-infused riffs and a torrent of sound-shaping effects. This is truly an album for the lovers of Leftfield.

Her approach on the first few cuts delves into the folk aesthetic more intentionally than previous works. Tracks such as 'Burning Flame' are pretty on the nose, with references to Cowboys, while maintaining an undercurrent of psychedelia. References to broken bones and being taken by this cowboy character are further expanded upon in the track 'Toat', where harmonicas are underpinned by a guitar line that sounds straight out of the Western. Daisy Ray quickly navigates out of this narrative through the tracks' Think Talk', 'Knockknock' and 'NY'. The tempo shifts while keeping some more folky elements in the instrumentation. Chanting is used significantly in 'Think Talk' as it combines with a more aggressive and edgy sound palette. The hyper pop pan flutes begin the totally out-there experience of 'Knockknock'. It's incredibly dancey and includes a mediaeval vibe. 'NY' Becomes more of a bridge between styles. Ray crafts an experimental, downbeat track that almost melts into the sci-fi electronics that play in the background.

Daisy Ray allowed her productions' wild and experimental side to shine by this point in the album. 'Shuff' comes to life with a distorted and chaotic hard left turn, keeping cohesion while still having that Western guitar feel. This is switched up with breakbeats and harsh noise under a much more intense vocal performance skewed by countless effects. It's at this point that Daisy Ray stops to explore the more psychedelic aspects. 'Fatal Seduction' includes repetitive drums reminiscent of an Indian Raga. Chaos is brought in with reverse percussion, and increasingly cold melodic lines indicate a mind trying to centre itself. 'Fatal Seduction' followed by 'Butterfly' adds to the new ones of the record. 'Butterfly' takes a different approach and feels like giving in to the trip sitter. The music becomes more Balearic beat, slow, with the constant chorus of "follow me, follow my lead, I will guide you."

The latter part of the album explores alternative song structures and instrumentation, wrapping everything up in a hallucinogenic bow. The track 'In de Wolken' plays a lot like an interlude as it doesn't follow the conventions of the track that came before the one that will proceed. Instead, it uses inventive percussion as a face for a strange yet stunning Casio line comedically interjected as a reminder not to smoke on a flight. Harmonising vocalisations add such a relaxing Kraftwerky element. 'In Het Zand' flips the atmosphere on its head. It uses horns and what sound like war drums to impart this quite sinister atmosphere. There's almost a child-like use of glockenspiel that becomes more and more haunting as the samples of someone crying start to invade the track.

You be forgiven for assuming the 'Alien Chatter' may be more of the same from its intro. Yet, Daisy Ray's bat shit production knows no bounds as it becomes this no-nonsense headbanger. It has enormous drums, a wicked walking baseline, and punky vocal delivery that becomes a strange blend of Shakespearean Riot grrrl. It's one of the standouts on the album because it shows Daisy Ray's range of influences and rebellious nature. We go from one unorthodox production to another, with the title track 'Shelly' being a dissonant jump into musique concrète. Each element sounds slightly off, with that being timing or pitch, and it seems that Daisy Ray actively looks for these little accidents. The heartbreaking sounds of 'Bee's Gone' round out the album. Field recordings and space echoes make up this serene yet strangely sad final outing on the album. Daisy Ray fleets between pushing far into the absurd, flooding the track with delays, and these calming and naturalistic segments that ultimately end the album.

As a freshman outing, Shelly is a spectacular project showing off vast technical expertise and artistic influences. While the album may lack a solid through line from beginning to end, this fearlessness and willingness to challenge this status quo makes Daisy Ray an authentic and heartwarming character. The album speaks honestly until those with a little bit of weird tucked just under the surface.

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