Smartphones have become synonymous with brain-rot culture; devices designed to curb our attention spans in favour of constant doom-scrolling and anxiety-induced purchases. But while corporations use our addiction to this technology to mine our personal data, one artist from London, Poppy H, uses their smartphone to construct beguiling and transportive electronic compositions. It’s not just a gimmick. Even if you didn’t know how these songs were created, you would still be taken aback by their finesse and attention to detail; they are as intellectual as they are emotional. We caught up with the artist to find out more about them and their process.
Hi Poppy H! Thanks for taking the time to talk to me. How are you today?
I’ve been feeling quite uneasy of late, with a sense that things are closing in on me from various sides. I consume culture and make stuff endlessly to keep these thoughts at bay – but with the new album now out and work on a commission recently finished I’m at risk of freefalling. But the polite answer is, I’m OK thanks, how are you?
Can you talk a bit about how you first got into music production?
I was writing lyrics and recording stuff from a very young age. I had a decent ear for vocal hooks and melodies really early on – helped by growing up in a house filled with Motown – and perhaps could’ve gone in a completely different direction musically. I’ve never been technically minded so I’ve always used what I’ve got in front of me, which might account for why I naturally moved away from polished pop (which I still love) into more experimental spaces.
Your recent album, “Wilderness Channel”, was made with a smartphone, which I find totally mind boggling. Could you talk us through the technical process of that? You mention it being a kind of self-imposed artistic constraint, but did it pose any specific challenges?
All my albums have been made using my smartphone in this way but nine more so than Wilderness Channel for which I recorded very little live instrumentation. My general technical process is I use the GarageBand app on my phone, openly recording my improvisations and compositions onto timelines, then mixing them within the app. It was a nightmare at first and my sound has evolved as I’ve gradually learned on the job how to use it.
Will this be a permanent medium or process for you, or will you return to more traditional production styles in the future?
I’ve never used traditional production styles – I’m happy that way – but I recently did a thing for a sound artist who really knows what he’s doing – has all the gear and that – and I just had to be honest and say I don’t have the means to achieve a really simple effect. Thankfully, he’s a good bloke and didn’t make a big deal about it.
“Wilderness Channel” is ultimately a very beautiful listen, even when it gets dark (“the last bridge correctly”). Would you consider yourself a romantic or sentimental person in general? Do you have an optimistic outlook on life?
Thank you for saying the album is beautiful. Personally, I think it’s more subtle than any of my other releases so I’m glad you found something of interest in it. Privately, inwardly, I am achingly sentimental and romantic. ‘Dark’ and ‘beautiful’ are generally the two things I want most from music – separately or together. I can’t stop listening to One Day I’ll Fly Away by Randy Crawford at the minute, and I’m not ashamed by that in the slightest – it’s not a guilty pleasure, it’s just a pleasure. We can be more than one thing at once. We can make art that makes little obvious sense, is abrasive and challenging and we can repeat play Dolly Parton’s sweetest songs or believe that The Proclaimers are two of the most romantic poets and singers of all time. Generally, I am an optimist but that’s regularly challenged these days by the endless suffering of people the world over – not least the genocide in Palestine – and thanks to far less serious personal shit.
What do you think the role of music, or art in general, is in 2026?
An interesting thing to ponder. I wonder if merely surviving is art’s current main objective, as it gets picked apart at every level by corporate scavengers? The bloodsuckers have always preyed on things they can never fully appreciate or understand but the speed in which major corporations sweep up or destroy independent art these days is more rapid and shameless than ever. But good shit can and will come out of survival, so fuck ‘em all.
You’re from the UK, can I ask whereabouts? And does your environment influence your work?
Environments play a huge part in everything I do – I think that’s why I like recording and mixing at home and out and about on my phone, rather than in a generic studio where a thousand albums have been made in much the same way as each other. I’m field recording or adding tracks to tunes when I’m amongst strangers, feeding off real life rather than sucking in air con in soundproof rooms. I’m from east London and though we moved further east when I was young it still feels like home to me – I find I’m more confident in east London than anywhere else. Right wing politicians in the UK will have you believe that you’re risking your life just being in London – particularly areas they deem rougher – but hand on heart there really is no better vibe than Gillett Square in Dalston, near where I used to live. Again, if these pricks can’t own something or understand it they want to destroy it e.g. culture and community. Nowadays, I live in Suffolk, not far from the east coast of England – I only began releasing music when I moved here a few years ago so it had a real impact. I think being removed from London (though I’m there twice a week) gave me the headspace to think and create, to look back and look forward. I have this feeling that I’ll live in London again someday but I’m happy where I am right now.
Are there any particular artists, or anything in life, that have inspired you?
The list of artists is fairly endless, and there are those who inspire you as a person and those who inspire you as an artist – and maybe some who do both. Off the top of my head, at this exact point in time, for varying reasons, here are some artists old and new who inspire me…
T e l e p a t h, Brendon Moeller, Manslaughter 777, billy woods, Joanne Robertson, Laurel Halo, Emahoy Mariam Tsege Gebru, Masako Ohta, Fief, Ozbolt, Nobody, Klein, Virginia Astley, Joe Hisaishi, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Mabe Fratti, Felicia Atkinson, Dean Blunt, Xylitol, Julinko, Hania Rani, CS + Kreme, Duval Timothy, Nina Simone, Machine Girl, Actress, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Alice Coltrane, The Caretaker, Charles Mingus, Arthur Russell, Ben Watt.
I’m almost as inspired by films these days as I am music. I went through a period of devouring Japanese films, then moved onto Italian cinema and more recently have become obsessed with the work of Turkish filmmaker Nuri Bilge Ceylan. Nothing much seems to happen in his incredible film Winter Sleep (2014) but it could inspire twenty albums worth of music. Outside of art, a few big life moments have stuck to me like glue and inform all my work subconsciously.
What comes first for you, technical craft or creativity?
In my work, the technical side of things is a battle, challenge or conundrum I face once I’ve been creative – given the aforementioned lack of technical know-how and clever gear. Not that the tech side can’t be creative too – discovering technical solutions can sometimes lead to results you couldn’t plan for or compose. But I mostly work in a frenzied improvisational way before pinning down what it is I’m doing and saying, then I begin to collage.
And how about outside of music? What is a typical day in your life?
Away from music, I’m reading at a rate of knots, watching films, walking my insane Romanian rescue dog, drinking too much coffee, and seeing mates whenever possible – most likely at Café Oto in Dalston. All sounds pretty unremarkable but music takes up the vast majority of my time and just about keeps me from going insane. I do have a children’s book idea I want to start work on soon and I’m keen to start making films – so maybe my next music release will be my last for a while, who knows…
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