In the California pop singer-songwriter’s bright, hallucinogenic world, everything glows in the dark and almost every chorus is chanted.
Remi Wolf’s musical and lyrical language speaks in zany technicolor. The 25-year-old singer-songwriter opened “Doctor,” the first song on her 2019 debut EP You’re a Dog!, by promising, “I’d literally pee outside for you on Hollywood Boulevard.” Last year, Wolf released a follow-up, I’m Allergic to Dogs!, and notched her biggest hit to date with “Photo ID,” an ironic quarantine-era anthem (“Inside, that’s where we can be free!”) with a surreal, hyper-saturated animated video. On her new full-length, Juno, she hones her scatterbrained Californian pop into an effervescent, hook-filled record that flirts with weighty emotions but often swerves for the safety of a joke.
Wolf’s style manages to be funky without sounding cloyingly retro; at times the production on Juno is so shiny it edges toward hyperpop fluorescence. The first half of the album is entirely co-produced by Wolf with collaborator Jared “Solomonophonic” Solomon, whose groovy riffs and guitar shredding lend heft to the songs’ squiggly squelches. But every ounce of sunshine is tempered by grit; Wolf’s voice retains its powerful rasp even when she stretches it into absurd shapes. Seconds into opener “Liquor Store,” it’s woven into sour-sweet harmonies with the twang of a Duane Allman guitar lick.
Wolf has said she wants her music to be “upbeat and danceable,” and that’s certainly true of Juno: Whether soulful or playful, happy or numb, every line and note is crammed into the kooky aesthetic. The lyrics are so full to the margins with wisecracks that it can be hard to discern a narrative arc––or, really, any way to engage other than sitting back, pulling on the weed pen, and sharing the giggle. But hidden between the wry asides and na-na-na choruses are murmurs of discontent. Bright and hallucinogenic as the music may be, “Liquor Store” is about Wolf’s experience getting sober, and through all the gags, Juno is an album about fitting uncomfortably into adulthood. On the frenetic “Quiet on Set,” Los Angeles is a dizzying movie lot where everything feels like it could fold up and roll away at any moment; on closer “Street You Live On,” Wolf contorts her voice until a song about feeling torn apart by a breakup sounds like a playground chant.
An appealing weariness underlines these songs: Just listen to the squeaky three-part harmonies of “Front Tooth” that squeal, “This just don’t feel like it’s supposed to.” In Wolf’s relentlessly upbeat world, where everything glows in the dark and almost every chorus is chanted, Juno finds tension when it lets a bit of melancholy seep in, as on the muted coda of “Volkiano,” or the playful production of “Sally,” whose incongruous pairing of acoustic guitar and a high-tempo electronic drum break sounds like a set-up for a punchline, but instead disarms with its earnestness.
In “Quiet on Set,” Wolf sings about how she doesn’t want to “be a Debbie Downer.” But it would be a shame to let a commitment to danceable music or a wacky persona hold her back from exploring her artistic range. Somewhere around Juno’s ninth or tenth track, the phantasmagoria begins to feel surprisingly monochromatic, and the idea of Wolf toning it down starts to sound appealing. The gags and the pathos are a package deal, but once all the jacks are back in their boxes, it’s worth asking if Wolf could be even more compelling as a real person than she is as a cartoon.
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