HOME WAS ALWAYS ME

You can't always get what you want — but if you rave sometimes, you get what you need. That was basically the case with Canadian producer Caroline Cecil. Born in Toronto and raised in Nanaimo, there was a time when Cecil was on track to possibly compete at the Olympics as a figure skater before a debilitating mishap dashed her ice dancing hopes in her late teens. From that low, an inspirational experience at the now-defunct Sasquatch! Music Festival got her high-stepping in a different way.At the time of her accident, she only had a broken ankle and a shattered dream. Yet, because that horrible thing happened, Cecil found a new home in music — and a different branch of the timeline, the one that we are currently fortunate enough to be on, was gifted with the menacing brilliance of WHIPPED CREAM.Like the multifaceted goddess Athena, WHIPPED CREAM appears to have sprung from Cecil's forehead fully formed. Her blend of pop melodies, introspective lyricism and massive bass has only become more sophisticated, tasteful and surprising since she took her first steps into this world with her debut release back in 2015 — mixed, mastered and produced herself. She appeared at Salmo's legendary Shambhala for the first time that same year, an honour for which many knob-twiddlers wait aeons, if they ever receive the call at all.While the onset of the pandemic was a forced hiatus that paused life for most, 2020 saw WHIPPED CREAM reach newfound heights of fame. Riding high off of appearances at festivals like Ultra, Electric Daisy Carnival and Lollapalooza, her aesthetic achieved a new level of professional polish. She landed a collaboration with Baby Goth directly after Doja Cat's opening cut on the Birds of Prey soundtrack, and who knows how widespread her Hollywood push may have gone without the nascent pandemic dampening box offices for what was ultimately a just-okay movie.All of this — the whole messy, unplanned path with so many obstacles along the way — led us to HOME WAS ALWAYS ME. Housed by Monstercat, the Vancouver-based electronic music giant that has released most of Cecil's creative output in recent years, her proper debut full-length continues to show how deep the well of creativity from which she draws is, fully exploring the overlapping area between REZZ's nightmare bass worship and Rêve's dance-pop songcraft.HOME WAS ALWAYS ME is joyously re-listenable, the kind of set-it-and-forget-it record that can end up playing through several times before one notices that it is repeating. It delights in contrasts, hitting dance floors and bedrooms, bass bins and headphones, hearts and minds in equal measure. It's the lemonade from lemons, the rainbow after rain, the surprising new discovery after a profound disappointment.All 14 tracks put together don't clock out at much more than a half-hour, but it has a compelling, progressive flow that it feels longer than its runtime (in a good way). It's one consistent statement made of precisely linked vignettes, a concept album about loving others as much as you love yourself that hits that sweet spot between the cinematic brevity of Tierra Whack, the spatial awareness of Jon Hopkins and the stadium bombast of Skrillex, with stripped-down lovelorn lyricism.The opening ballad "want me again" lands solidly in that Taylor Swift pocket with its use of clean guitar and relatable lovey-dovey lyrics, yet the instrumental ends up in more of a hardcore Go! Team place when its cheerleading percussion starts skipping over that groaning bass line. Even at two-minutes short, it's a bit of a slow burn, a measured entry into the album that culminates in the comparative hyperactive sexuality of "collide" — the hard techno closer with the most delicious 8-bit synth breakdowns and sultry vocals. With these tracks as bookends, this slickly balanced album goes from passively hoping to actively smashing.Featuring Los Angeles singer-songwriter NO/ME, "alive" is a car commercial waiting to film itself (no AI required) and "light back into my life" isn't too far behind on the rom-com soundtrack. "midnight moon" and BKAYE collab "never mine" both work that woozy, pulsing side-chain compression tech-house club-comedown to perfection.Yet, the minute-and-a-half-long interlude "a different self, not this time" is one of this album'' most interesting selections. The interlude comes on with a synth line reminiscent of the slowed down intro from Instupendo's "Six Forty Seven," that creepy song from the Backrooms trailer, but then a '90s alternative guitar bass line twangs up, Cecil's processed Poltergeist vocals start emoting, and eventually the percussion percolates to take it from bedroom pop into DnB territory. It's such a short track, but it travels far.The call-and-response interplay of baby-ish and adult feminine vocals alternating the I-love-yous on "ellie's song (i love you)" lulls the listener into a sort of cloudy, wistful trance until that river of a bass line comes in and wooshes you away with its dark undercurrent. A similar contrast is also felt in the four-on-the-floor house of "call my name," contrasting elegant piano and ethereal, synth-y vocals with hard-snapping kicks and brooding sub-bass; a simultaneous lightness and darkness reminiscent of Robyn.It's a wonder to behold Cecil's immense talent and vision, as well as her ability to hold two contrasting ideals, sweet and sour, at once. Finding her balance on the dance floor after losing it on the ice, she seems at home with herself on HOME WAS ALWAYS ME. WHIPPED CREAM has risen to the top, and there's still more room.