“Raw Honey is the long-term recording project of Maggie Hopp. The project has passed through multiple casts of collaborators—and geographies—with two elements unchanged: Hopp’s psychically unearthing songs and the frequent contribution of Ypsilanti cult hero Fred Thomas. ‘Riverbed’, to be released on Thomas’ vinyl/tape label Life Like in 2021, is an uncompromisingly open album for an artist who already approaches songwriting with an unnerving directness. Excavating her traumatic upbringing, Hopp parses through the mess of her emotional history to create an oddly clear rumination that’s resolute and vulnerable, but above all—tender, much like the child holding a child on the album’s cover.
Based primarily out of southeast Michigan/Detroit, Hopp has traveled widely, including life abroad in South Korea and China. The imagery and detail of that life bursts through her writing, balancing the markedly internal quality of her lines with the steady movement that carries them. Listeners find themselves receding into themselves at the same time they’re urged into the wider world, crossing weird concrete bridges or kissing ghosts on trains. There is nothing static to be found. That’s some of the quality of this music: we are not allowed to decide about or locate this artist, who in pursuit of “honesty” offers us a whole person.
– Alex Silver
Released May 7, 2021
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