EP Review: Wildest Creatures I’ve Dreamed

Auckland songwriter freya storms into July with her debut studio EP, the beautifully titled Wildest Creatures I’ve Dreamed. Recorded with Harry Charles and Morgan Allen at The Depot, this EP does a fantastic job at taking its listener to the poetic realm of a sleepy, nostalgia-filled seaside town like Devonport. Freya’s cited influences such as Daniel Caesar and Phoebe Bridgers glisten throughout. The most apparent influence is English songwriter dodie, whose instrumental and melodic choices have clearly informed much of freya’s writing.

Wildest Creatures I’ve Dreamed draws listeners in with its lullaby of a first track, New Years, from which the EP finds its stunning titular lyric. New Years opens with ambient sounds and soothing reverb which create the soft, ethereal landscape this EP dances within. On tracks like Take U Away and Swim To You, freya’s layered harmonies reflect the vulnerability so prominent in her work. Across the board, freya’s lyrics are well-adapted to their rhythms and melodies, although there is room to grow in their originality.

The interplay between freya’s gentle yet skillful guitarwork and inspired piano embellishments, particularly on New Years and Tumble, recognises her clearly vast musical background. Tumble is most impressive in its affected outro, which suddenly takes the soft acoustic track to an eerie whine of a finale. These moments of dynamic range are where freya’s musical creativity truly shines.

On the EP’s standout track, Liquid Honey, a chorus as smooth as the song’s title is taken to even greater heights, with a post-chorus that emphasises glorious dynamics and stunning instrumentals. This is by far the longest song on Wildest Creatures I’ve Dreamed, but with an outro like that, the honour is well-deserved. In future work, I hope to see freya hone in on these perfect emotional connections between her dreamy lyrical and musical content.

In Norse mythology, Freya is the goddess of love, lust and fertility, romantic ideas which our country’s own freya expresses emphatically. Norse goddess Freya also represents battle and death, and these darker concepts simmer beneath this EP in the sheer intensity and apocalyptic-level desperation each song trembles with. Wildest Creatures I’ve Dreamed shows freya living up to the heavenly origins of her namesake. She voices the kaleidoscopic emotions of youth, from the spacious, intelligent perspective of a goddess knowing more than she lets on. With further freedom to develop her studio sound, freya will undoubtedly solidify herself amongst songwriting greats.