The idea of tried and true “progression” in today’s music landscape is just as worn-out and tired as it is undefinable and lost. That term is meant to represent forward-thinking change and all of the corresponding new avenues that result from moving in that direction so swiftly, though in recent times, it has come to unfairly define just about anything that “goes against the norm.”
Simply doing something different in the music world is not progression; the only way to lay claim to such a term is to make music that teases toward tomorrow, with all of the relevance of our present times. And with that being said, there are seldom acts who embody that very term as vividly as the one and only Petal Supply. Bursting onto the ever-rising pop landscape that has been brewing up in the realms of the Internet for the past year and beyond, the 909 Worldwide purveyor has made quite the immense impression on this rapidly-advancing pop world as it is coming to shape up.
Through her magnetic personality on the mic, to her tellingly unique sense of genre-blending structure that defines the outlook of her art, this generational talent is only concerned with defining the sounds of the future in our present times — a notion shared by many, but one that has only come to fruition within a select amount of artists. Petal Supply finds herself among this select group beyond a shadow of a doubt, and her debut EP “Hey” is the statement piece that proves this fact in full.
Over seven songs that all play their own distinct roles in the tracklisting, this project is not only the most adequate representation of her unmistakable talents, but also one that introduces something of an untapped sense of storytelling and conceptual weight that had yet to be uncovered in taking in her artistry up to this point. That claim results from the project’s underlying themes of lust, adoration, and the youthful spirit that comes with those terms — being that the entire EP is themed around seven different crushes that Petal herself has come to have since our worldwide forced-isolation earlier this year.
Petal takes these themes and infuses them into this absolutely magnetic and off-the-wall album from a sonic perspective, with each and every track encompassing her unprecedented prowess in the realms of trance, EDM, and both of their respective relationships with the modern pop world that she is looking to define even more than she has already. But with tracks as “Picture On My Screen” and “Time” being such impeccable examples of the seamless blend of these genres coming together as they do, that aforementioned defining goal has already been achieved based on these tracks alone.
The same is true for nearly every single track here — perhaps at its most telling level when fellow modern trance icon and frequent collaborator Himera joins Petal for another version of “It’s U” — a track released in its “Pearl Version” earlier this year on Himera’s outstanding EP of their own in September’s “More Than Friends.” Fitting the nostalgic Pokemon-based naming conventions between the two, the track’s “Diamond Version” appears here, and it is just as enjoyable as its preceding offering based on its much more tightly-controlled and muted demeanor.
Combining these entertaining and conceptually-sound lyrical themes with the masterful instrumentation and overall presentation that this project flaunts, there is simply no question that Petal Supply failed in any way to impress beyond any given expectations with this EP. It stands out in every single manner that it attempted to from the outset, and the final product does just as great of a job at painting a distinct picture of the future as it does as an admirable one of the present.