gglum: Lucid dreams

With her debut album 'The Garden Dream,' gglum weaves a rich tapestry of dreams and reality, exploring a deeply personal musical journey that spans the gamut of her eclectic influences and introspective lyricism. Just don't skip on the first listen. Check out the latest cover story for our New Music Friday playlist edit, PLAY.

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.

Emerging from the vibrant, eclectic backdrop of London, gglum - or Ella Smoker, for it is she, etc etc - embarks on a deeply personal and exploratory musical journey with her just-dropped debut album, 'The Garden Dream'.

A pivotal moment for any artist, it's a record that dives headfirst into a realm that blurs the lines between the surreal dreamscapes of her mind and the tangible reality of her experiences - not just as an introduction to gglum's artistic prowess but also a gateway into the complex tapestry of her inner world.

Following on from her formative projects 'Weak Teeth' and 'once the edge has worn off', 'The Garden Dream' is where Smoker fully blooms, nurtured by vivid, sometimes unsettling dreams that she couldn't help but transcribe into her music. "At the time of writing it, I was having loads of really freaky dreams that I accidentally started writing about and mushing up with real-life events," she admits. "I guess it's about how your dreams are fantastical stories to explain the way you feel or process things that you never really managed to process in real life. A kind of fever dream mish-mash of the world in your head and reality."

Beyond its thematic richness, 'The Garden Dream' is a musical odyssey that spans the breadth of gglum's influences and inspirations. From the raw emotion of indie-rock to the introspective lyricism of folk and the avant-garde edges of alt-pop, Smoker weaves a sound that is both distinctively hers and resonant with the wider human experience, where the fantastical and the mundane blend in a tapestry of sound and story.