A lesson in DIY music, When All The World Has Gone To Bed was written, recorded, produced, released and promoted by 19 year old Poppy Johnson, the brains behind the Bug Teeth moniker. Poppy's influence in every element of the EP has given it clear sense of style as well as the personal touch that comes from music recorded in a space so close to the artist.
As a self-taught musician, Poppy quickly took to learning the ropes of recording too. "It's basically just a massive trial and error", she says "I'll sit there for hours making things". The Bug Teeth sound is distinct, coming from Poppy's "really layered process of writing", and is inspired by bands like Beach House and M83. Starting by "fucking around with [her] guitar", songs are built up of a multitude of sounds and noises that come together in an ambient, atmospheric symphony.
This sense of revisiting and addition is one that takes place over weeks, months and even years for Poppy. Track 2 on the EP, Serotonin, was first released on SoundCloud in 2015. "I didn’t realise [at the time] that I would do anything else with the track", she explained. By coming back to the song after moving to university in 2017, Poppy found she could reinvent the track thanks to the new influences and experiences that came from living in a different city.
Poppy's writing process is also inspired by her synesthesia, a neurological condition whereby sounds are seen as colours. "All the stuff I write is what looks nice", she explains. Not content with just creating music, Poppy's album artwork is all photos taken by herself to represent the songs. "All my Bandcamp pictures are based on what colours the songs are. Serotonin is a light green, Forest is dark green and Rosie is purpley".
The recording setup for Poppy is as stripped back as possible, taking place in either her home or university bedroom. "The first thing you'll see is my 4 foot shark", she jokes, "I've also got my studio mic, amp, guitar, pedals and pre-amp to record with". In the sprit of keeping it simple, Poppy uses Garage Band to edit and mix her tracks; and all the drum and synth samples come from there too.
Self-promotion and release have also been new skills adopted by Poppy in the process of getting this EP into the world. After finding a distribution company online "for £20 a year - not that bad!", she was able to get her music onto Spotify and Apple Music - and Bug Teeth has already racked up 425 monthly listeners. The power of social media even got her EP to recent Mercury Prize winners Wolf Alice before she could tell them about it herself. "I sent Ellie the EP to see if she would listen to it", Poppy explained. But the internet had beaten her to it - the reply from the Wolf Alice front-woman read "woah that's weird I literally just listened to this as I saw someone tweet about it"!
Despite all the love for When All The World Has Gone To Bed, Poppy still remains humble about her expectations in the future. "I don't do it for recognition - I just want to get my music out there as it’s something I really enjoy. It's so interesting that people really like it because I only made it in my bedroom". The next step for Bug Teeth is to play some live shows, something which Poppy is trying to make happen in her university town of Norwich.
Proving that you can do just about anything if you set your mind to it, Bug Teeth's latest release is an inspiring example of the freedom that self releasing your music can give.