Rather than compiling a double album or reimagining material into acoustic form, Puma Blue’s Jacob Allen created two entirely separate albums from the same creative spark. Released a year apart nearly to the day, last February’s Antechamber and this past month’s Croak Dream are something of a yin and yang to each other. “Antechamber was all about what’s nestled inside you that you’re not ready to look at, whereas Croak Dream feels like an explosion of letting it all hang out and being free—less curated and sheltered with you exposing your soul,” Allen explains.
That’s not to say the two records were on equal footing during their creation, according to the Atlanta-via-London artist, whose eclecticism ranges from dreamy soul to alt-rock to jazz to something a little more lo-fi with his emotive falsetto tending to be the ever-identifiable throughline for all things Puma Blue. “[Croak Dream] was actually kind of a nightmare,” he admits of the newer, more electronics-based release. “I feel like I always have a bare-bones structure as I’m writing. This was the first album where I must have experimented with the Rubik’s Cube of it in every type of way. It wasn’t a completely natural process.”
Piqued to learn more about Puma Blue and the process he went about putting together this latest record, we handed the mic over to him so he could shed some light on each of Croak Dream’s songs.
1. “Desire”
I basically built this song with my iPhone. I recorded the guitar through the voice memo app, and I had some old Apple headphones with the microphone in the cord. I recorded the vocal takes into that and through a laptop, so it was really shitty-sounding, but I kept the guitars. I was going to replace them, but when I listened to it, I thought, “If I’m trusting my ears and not just thinking about it rationally, I really like the sound of this shitty guitar.” So I ended up implementing that [guitar sound] across the album with no amps in the room, just an unplugged electric guitar through an iPhone.
2. “Mister Lost”
This is one of those songs [that I made] to make myself laugh—and also could be in Trainspotting. I wasn’t really thinking about an end goal, though. I write a lot of ballads and sometimes forget that the ’90s music I listen to doesn’t have many. I listen to a ton of stuff, but I really lock in on the sad poet journey. I like to write poems, and I’ve done some spoken-word in Puma Blue songs before, but not this aggressive. I had this old poem in my phone about this gross guy who came into a club I was at. I felt this patriarchal grip on him, and I felt both sad for him and disgusted by him. Also, I was trying to do something that had no guitars in it and was just sort of a wall of noise. I didn’t limit myself with this song, and that widened the parameters [of the Puma Blue sound]. It was liberating to make this song.
3. “Hold You”
I don’t do a lot of co-writing for Puma Blue, even though I love to co-write for other people. At the same time, I wanted to team with my friend Simon [Edward Christensen, a.k.a. producer Psymun]. So we got together a couple years ago, and this song happened so easily. It was waiting for us. The lyrics are about someone I like who isn’t in my life anymore. Halfway through writing it I switched it to be about a cat that I just lost. So it became a broad song about loss. It’s not a love song or a grief song; it’s a sad song. I had fun and played all the instruments, breaking out of the sad-poet mentality.
4. “Croak Dream”
I wasn’t actually considering this as a song; it was completely instrumental. At first I thought the melodies were kind of cheesy, but now I look back on it and don’t think they’re cheesy at all. It was probably one of the last that I actually finished writing. The keytar is a fun little addition, too. There’s also drumming by [collaborator Ellis Dupuy] and a bunch of distorted guitar and a six-minute-long jam. I showed it to Harvey [Dweller], who plays some keys and sax in the band, and he said, “This is your best thing you’ve ever done, you just need to sing on it.”
5. “Heaven Above, Hell Below”
I wrote this song a few years ago in a hotel room with only a guitar and a phone recording. That’s the same recording that’s on the album, just with added textures. Even the vocals were recorded with the microphone of a pair of headphones. I was feeling the crushing overwhelm of life, but also for the first time this new feeling of not wanting to disappear when things are hard. It was a moment of lonely clarity where I just felt like this little life, suffering and all, is enough. It’s plenty. I’m so happy to be here. The piano was recorded that way by tape erasing while Harvey was improvising, we couldn’t have gotten that without the magic of accident.
6. “(Fool)”
The sound is the most interesting thing about this song, so I let everything else fall away so it was just that sound. I tried to write something that reminded me of my old stuff, which is usually a cardinal sin that I try to avoid at all costs. It’s a song about really crushing on the person you’re with and imagining them as someone you’ve never met before, someone who sweeps you off your feet. I imagined this silly thing where they enter a room, almost gliding in, and you’re, like, “Fuck ’em.” It was fun to write a classic love song. I sometimes struggle with writing things that feel positive and optimistic, so when a song comes from the universe that’s golden rather than really dark, I’ll always take it.
7. “Hush”
“Hush” is a song that spells remorse and perhaps a wish to comfort characters both in the mirror and out. I’ve been actively spending less time on my phone in the last year, reading more and finding better things to do with my hands like learning to shuffle cards. There was this time that I was stuck in a hotel room and trying to watch a film, but the internet was too slow, so I made a bet with myself to see if I could write a James Bond song using only what I had in the hotel room. I was thinking, “What does a Puma Blue Bond theme sound like?” I wanted to draw on aspects of that archetype that I could relate to, and it came down to building walls around oneself, acting tough—which is something I’ve historically done when I’m hurting. It’s something I work to avoid and be vulnerable instead.
8. “Jaded”
“Jaded” was based around the idea of having a jam on the album that resembled the jams we have in rehearsals and in the studio. I felt like it would be cool to fuck around with Harvey until we had something resembling one of those, and then produce it full, make it immersive. I was listening to a lot of old jungle and dub and electronic UK stuff from the ’90s, so that was the energy behind that.
9. “Silently”
“Silently” came from the rhythm first. I just had this beat that I wanted to put chords to, and I wanted to see if I could find a chord progression that felt more devastating each time it moved. Lyrically, it’s about finality.
10. “Cocoons”
Originally, I envisioned the whole album sounding like this: R&B songs with left-field production and experimental sections. I really love songs about love, but they can be pretty hard to write, so I really cherish these ones. It’s about the vulnerability of being intimate with someone, even when you know each other really well. Intrusive thoughts and complicated feelings, as well as safety, pleasure and connection.
11. “Yearn Again”
“Yearn Again” was meant as a kind of final throw-down statement of themes. I gave Miles [Spilsbury], who played sax on this tune, a version of the tune that had a huge climax at the end for him to play over. And then I pulled from what he recorded and had this anti-drop moment at the end. It meant I was spoiled between his more subtle moments and the chaotic playing and got to react to it with my guitar.
