Always inven­tive, with a unique and expan­sive world view, the inter­na­tion­al, female-led Snowap­ple col­lec­tive has released a new album June 13th titled Utopia, blend­ing music, the­atre and activism. And they will be play­ing at Glas­ton­bury fes­ti­val on 25th June.

The Snowap­ple col­lec­tive evades pigeon­hol­ing into par­tic­u­lar genre; instead they embrac­ing and bring togeth­er dif­fer­ent gen­res in an indi­vid­ual way. What­ev­er they are doing, it works, and espe­cial­ly on this lat­est work.

Utopia is pri­mar­i­ly a dark album, peer­ing into the future with a sense of fore­bod­ing, an emo­tion that many of us are feel­ing right now. But the col­lec­tive are also reach­ing out to offer a glim­mer of hope and, through con­nec­tion with each oth­er, a sense of com­fort. But there’s no deny­ing that omi­nous ener­gy in the air and Snowap­ple recre­ate this with an album made up pri­mar­i­ly of gui­tar, clar­inet and synths, lay­er­ing up the dra­ma for this work that they describe ‘between hope and dystopia’.

The first track Lit­tle Lit­tle Star immers­es you straight into Snowap­ple’s world. There’s more than a touch of French band Air in this del­i­cate wash of elec­tron­i­ca, out of which the band intone “I’d rather be a cyborg”. This leads into She Ella which intro­duces more than a hint of ten­sion, brought into sharp relief by jagged vio­lins that cut like ice. With Lau­rien SHE Snowap­ple’s tremu­lous vocals over a synth-led, futur­is­tic sound, this track – and the video – per­fect­ly illus­trates the gath­er­ing storm.

My Body has already been released as a sin­gle and was reviewed here. As we approach the mid-point of the work, the piv­otal track I, Cyborg, is revealed with its accom­pa­ny­ing video that won Best Music Video at the Euro­pean Shorts Award.

Mir­ror is a tense track, fea­tur­ing vocals inton­ing orders, “Look up, turn around, close your fist, sit down, lift up your arm…”, set against min­i­mal instru­men­ta­tion for max­i­mum impact. We are in the thick of night­mare ter­ri­to­ry, with no way back and hurtling towards the future. 

The final track Inter (live), is a won­der­ful piece of music, with its piano intro­duc­tion lead­ing into exquis­ite vocals, sung main­ly in French, and with rich orches­tra­tion that embod­ies the melan­choly and yet offers a glim­mer of positivity. 

I can see Utopia with all its dra­ma and no doubt offer­ing a riv­et­ing visu­al spec­ta­cle, going down a storm at fes­ti­vals this summer.

Utopia by Snowap­ple collective