The titular “Poison Ivy” makes for a great metaphor. Still, interestingly, Monique Grimme is talking about her relationship with the plant itself rather than the people who exhibit similar qualities. Although, like all good songs, the listener is free to interpret the song as they see fit. This is the latest in a run of collaborations between her and Sapphire Star Studios, which has already given us such cool singles as “Cut By A Rose” and “Neon Pretense.”
And for a song so physically based, so earthy, so primal, talking of an invasive plant which dominates and smothers all around it, and which may have been growing in the garden of her 18th century home for as long as America has been alive, it doesn’t take tth sonic route that many would opt for.
Given that a song is connected to the ancient earth, the non-human world, many would have turned the song into a darker, perhaps more pagan-infused sound. Monique is cleverer than that, avoiding such clichés and forging a sound more akin to a chilled and understated 80s-era Fleetwood Mac song.
There is something wonderfully descriptive about the lyrics, too, as they explore the plant’s properties, examine its secretive ways, and muse on the love-hate relationship she has with it – a plant, after all, only doing what it has evolved to do. And it is this battle between humanity and the natural world that echoes out of the song, perhaps a microcosm of the bigger battles that play out across the globe.
Overall, there is something seductive and inviting about the song; despite its uncomfortable subject matter, in a purely physical sense, the song is smooth and subtle, running on bubbling grooves and gentle beats. Understatement is the name of the game here, a consistent sound that avoids more obvious dynamic switches, which would have drastically altered its nature and done so to its detriment. Instead, it just adds occasional sonic motifs and delicate riffs onto this steady sonic platform, and it is this consistency that beguiles us, drawing us in, hypnotic and heartfelt.
Consciously or otherwise, it pulls off that almost impossible trick – of turning the real into the unreal, the mundane into the magical!