Sometimes the Algorithm has its benefits. Rabbitology popped up on my Instagram feed of all places, but the snippet of Millie, Warm the Kettle sounded really cool (and let's be honest, the name is awesome). There was something quite mysterious about it all that beckoned my interest, and it grew on me pretty quickly.
This five-minute song evolves quite a bit throughout its runtime, and I love how definitively unreal it sounds. It's hard to put a finger on exactly what genre and sound this is: self-described as folktronica, it sounds like an eclectic blend of indie folk and art pop with varying influences and vibes. It sounds medieval, it sounds gothic, it sounds like the forest, it sounds like faeries (most of which Rabbitology has used to describe her own music). This unique sound that she's blended together is not revolutionary in principle, many of the elements have been seen before in the component genres, but I couldn't name a single other artist that sounds like her.
I love how intricate and complex the soundscape is, I love how articulated it feels and how cohesively surreal it is. It feels like magic (which does help to sell the branding of Rabbitology I suppose), and it feels so nuanced and well-versed. The 'Dorm Demo' tag almost feels like a joke, because it sounds amazing as it is. With the amount of layers and sound design this song has, it's hard to believe that it's just one person putting this together.
The vocals are more than perfect for this, it definitely has that magical timbre, one that sounds mysterious and has the tiniest tinge of sinister. The melody choices also hit it out of the park for me, they sound divine and very unorthodox. What really puts it all together though, are all the crazy harmonies and vocal layering that this song boasts. It sounds beautiful yet uncanny, and the sound design gives it a really strong fairytale feel. This song would fit perfectly as a soundtrack to some forest magic adventure game or movie, and it just has this unmistakable aura of fantasy. The lyricism is also in the same vein of magical and weird, I adore how she sequences and cuts up sentences to enhance the melodies, and every line is as mysteriously mythic as the rest.
The instrumentation plays an equally big part to the sound of the whole song, nothing overly complex but everything does its job perfectly. The percussion is strongly folk-based but the pacing is fast enough to invoke that adventurous feel, the guitars are mostly barebones but they are tonally on point, the synths and electronic elements aren't overpowering but they sit nicely in the background alongside everything else to spice up the sound design. God knows how much time she spends in the DAW to put this all together, much how less how much talent it takes to think of something like this.
In the grand scheme of things, Rabbitology is basically a newborn baby artist in the world of music. But that's the power of modern day social media, I suppose. You can discover the most specific artists that cater to your taste without waiting for years to gain traction and get popular before you finally hear of them. As of now, she's got three other dorm demos out on Spotify and they're all similarly delightful, but I'm keeping an eye out for the possibility of an album from her in the near future. It's got real potential to be a big favourite of mine.
Rating: 4/5