Just three months after releasing her last album, Poppy seems to be ushering in the next chapter of her career, sharing two eerie and polarising teaser videos.
The first, titled ‘Glass’, landed on December 22. Soundtracked by a low, ghostly hum, it saw Poppy – spotlit in an otherwise pitch-black room – take a sip from a porcelain cup before smashing it to pieces, crossing her arms and staring into the camera.
She followed it up on Monday (December 27) with a video titled ‘Blow Away’. It runs five times as long as ‘Glass’ did, with its droning soundtrack amplified and distorted into a dry, oscillating buzz. It also shows a visual contrast to ‘Glass’ with a striking all-white background, Poppy herself swivelling around as she gazes blindly into the distance, cigarette in clutch.
Take a look at ‘Glass’ and ‘Blow Away’ below:
Though Poppy is yet to give a formal explanation for the videos, fans have noted their similarity to a series of shorts the artist uploaded to YouTube in 2018, preceding the release of that’s year’s ‘Am I A Girl?’ album.
Poppy released her fourth full-length effort, ‘Flux’, back in September via Sumerian. In addition to its title track, singles from the record included ‘Her’ and ‘So Mean’.
In a four-star review of ‘Flux’, NME’s El Hunt said that “while it might be tempting to read [the album’s] more alternative leanings as a rare glimpse of the ‘real’ Poppy, doing so would stumble into the misconception that pop music is somehow less gritty or worthy than rock, and it’s not quite what this album is about”.
Hunt continued to say that ‘Flux’ “feels like a record about holding clear boundaries, constantly shifting in the face of set expectations, and following your creative gut instead”.
Fans will be able to watch Poppy play songs from the record live when she embarks on a five-date UK tour next month. She’ll also appear at next year’s Roskilde in Denmark, playing at the festival with the likes of Dua Lipa, Tyler, The Creator and Haim.
Also this year, Poppy dropped a surprise EP titled ‘EAT’, which landed as part of a special partnership between the WWE and Sumerian. It followed the title track’s debut during Poppy’s Grammy performance in March, and her tease of ‘Say Cheese’ at a show for the NXT in April.
In October, Poppy linked up with HEALTH for the collaborative single ‘Dead Flowers’.
Last month, she launched a Metaverse app for iOS and Android called ‘PoppySphere’, positioned as “a virtual 8-bit universe for fans to explore, with dynamic rooms and secrets to uncover as they navigate a realm of iconoclastic creation”.