Black Imagination and the Apple Tree Under the Sea

Hemlocke Springs’ debut album, “The Apple Tree Under the Sea” was officially released on February 13th, 2026. I started writing this the very same week the album dropped, but as usual, it eventually got buried beneath the avalanche of projects that are constantly starting, halting, or ending on my docket. In hindsight, however, I am glad that I delayed releasing this because I had the opportunity to see her live, an incredible experience, and one that serves to enhance my thoughts on the world of her album.

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I attended the concert with two of my siblings, dressed according to the “Garden of Unearthly Delights” theme Hemlocke had given for her Denver stop.

We showed up almost exactly at the 8pm start time listed on the tickets. Entering the Bluebird Theater, where the concert was hosted, we were astonished to hear Hemlocke’s voice already echoing out into the vestibule.

Prior to us leaving for the venue, my younger sibling informed me that the opener was someone listed as “meeeeeeee.” an artist they had never heard of. As we listened to her on stage, we noticed that she wasn’t singing any songs, but rather was in the midst of telling a collection of stories of her own making to the captivated crowd.

  It was at this moment that we realized the clever trick she had pulled with the listed opening act, and the story she told was no less amusing. From what I heard, it was a tale loosely based around the myth of Snow White and a blend of other fairytales (I unfortunately am not sure because I left at some point to go to the merch table, where I thankfully got their last shirt and one of the last six vinyls available, so no regrets.)

As you read through this piece, you will see how much I find her storytelling integral to the enjoyment I get from this album, and it serves as a thematically binding agent to give the album a cogent identity.

I was extremely excited for this concert for a few reasons, but among the biggest was my certainty that Hemlocke would be a great live performer based on what I had seen of her personality, and this shone through the whole night. As she went through her story, she flipped through a host of props to aid her, including cutouts of memes to represent characters in her story, like the messed-up looking Twilight baby, Renesmee, and the blue baby monstrosity being burnt in fire:

Her set dressing was minimal but impactful, subtly evoking the ideas and fantastical aesthetics of her album. Seated on the stage was a skeleton dressed like her, whom she serenaded throughout the show, amusing the audience. There was also a large pirate’s chest onstage that she repeatedly pulled props from, and when she performed “sever the blight” she ran backstage and reemerged with a glittering longsword, matching the sparkly tricorner hat she sported for most of the night, both glinting etherally under the flashing stage lights.

For me, the performance fulfilled the promise made by the album, offering a world exploding with life and color, stained with the mercurial freedom offered by stories and imagination.

I would like to open up by saying that this is not an album review, nor an assertion that the opinions expressed in this piece reflect the intentions of the artist.

Rather, this is an examination of what this artifact means to me personally as someone who is deeply in love with creativity, imagination, and particularly black imagination and storytelling. This is my assertion, not what the artist intended the piece to be, but what I pulled from my experience of the album, translated across my life experience, textured with my perspective and biases.

As a matter of necessity, I will also be discussing Christianity a decent amount, as there is an abundance of biblical allusions all throughout the album, from its title to much of the imagery and themes referenced throughout.

I am not a Christian, and though I have read parts of the Bible throughout my life, particularly portions of the Old Testament, I was not raised in a culture dedicated to analyzing its messaging and meaning. At the same time, as a participant of the Western world, I have also been exposed to the messaging of Christianity my whole life, and will be using that experience as an entry point to dissecting how I understood the symbolism of the album.

 It is also an album that is often narrated, with Hemlocke Springs acting as a guide through various tales depicting her journey through growth. As she explores these stories, she often embodies different personas or different positions in the narrative, making her an avatar or archetypal being in this tale, almost like a trickster spirit narrating, passing through, and experiencing these stories. In the interest of this, I will be treating the main character of the album as her own character, and any mention of “Hemlocke” is distinct from the artist unless specifically stated otherwise.

TRACK 1

The first track, “the red apple” opens on a personal note that sets the stage for the framework with which to understand the rest of the album. On the cover of the album, we see an artistic rendering of Hemlocke, drenched in kaleidoscopic rainbow light, and holding an apple. This rendering can be read as Hemlocke being made of pure light, since the colors of the rainbow are what result from the refraction of light. This evokes a sense of divinity in Hemlocke’s appearance, while the apple in her hand calls one to think of the bible.

Rather than a singular entity, with this allusion to Eve with the apple from the tree of knowledge, Hemlocke becomes an avatar of womankind, and as we progress through the album, the album reads as a series of vignettes of the challenges of growing into womanhood.

And in another sense, Hemlocke is also the apple. In many tracks throughout the album, we can see her observing the role she plays in the eyes of others, the temptation she represents for others, and the dynamics that creates for her.

Author and botanist Beronda Montgomery, in her book “When Trees Testify,” discusses the historical and symbolic ways in which apple trees appear in Black history.

In this, she mentions the role of the African-Americans in the cultivation and caretaking of the apple orchards in America, while also being forbidden or limited from benefiting from the many things they produced. In this dynamic, we see the temptation represented by the apple take on a realized form, even summoning images of Tantalus forever reaching for the elusive fruit right before him.

Though the apple’s consumption will bring much, bad and good, the haunting sweetness that can’t be forgotten, the risk of punishment, it must be tasted.

Mongomery later recalls a conversation between the great African American emancipator, Harriet Tubman, and journalist Frank C. Drake, as detailed in Milton C Sernett’s book Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History. The conversation went as follows.

“Tubman pointedly drew his attention to her apple orchards and asked him “Do you like apples?” She went on to share, “I liked apples when I was young, and I said, ‘Someday I’ll plant apples myself for other young folks to eat, and I guess I done it.’” Drake portrays the final moment of this brief exchange as Tubman breaking into a song that declared that at emancipation, the formerly enslaved now had access to the cider in the cellar that had previously been forbidden to them.”

It is significant here to highlight Harriet leading off into song after she discussed these dreams, as they highlight the ubiquitous role that music has played in African-American life, and particularly in its role as a capsule for imagination. I am not sure what song it was that Harriet sang, but it shows the ways in which African-Americans used music to hold our hopes before they could be realized.

Many of these songs took the form of antebellum spirituals and gospel songs, showing African-Americans navigating a theology that was often imposed upon them, and using it to spin beautiful and subversive art from it. In many ways, this album feels like an installment to this canon, particularly with songs like “moses” and “w-w-w-w-w”.

Another interesting fact that I gleaned from Montgomery’s book is the fact that apple seeds contain a chemical called amygdalin, which, when it reacts with certain enzymes, can develop into hydrogen cyanide, a toxic chemical. In this way, we see that the apples, beings of sweetest temptation, come with their very own poison.

The reason apple seeds contain this chemical is in order to prevent creatures, like us, from eating them. Rather than a tale of good and evil, the apple tree in reality is a tale of complex relationships, competing needs, gradual adjustment, and communal growth.

We see Hemlocke in the midst of temptation, knowing that she is falling. Riding for “El Shaddai” which is a Hebrew name for God. Rather than a descent into “sin”, it feels like a descent into humanity. That moment in growing up when the fantasies of the world begin to fade, and the experience of “being” involves more than merely existing. In a world awash of sex, drugs, and rock&roll, the act of growing is one of learning to navigate the world of sin rather than wholly avoiding it. To eat the apple then, is to become part of the real world.

Hemlocke Springs, in her interview with Anthony Fantano, shared that the title of this album came about somewhat randomly, being a reworked leftover from some absurdist jingle she had worked on in the past. In fact, she says that the identity of this album very much came about over time, rather than through a concentrated effort to build a conceptual album. I find this surprising because the allusions and storytelling throughout this album are so instantly captivating, all carrying the texture of a fable. The song begins with the lines

“At first glance, devilry will abide’

so fears of reverie soothe the eyes

I tremble, knowing who to confide,

 I call on El Sheddai.”

From this divine figure, she is given the charge “rid impurity of humankind.”This could be read two different ways: the first would be to view her own shortcomings as the “impurity” she must rid herself of, which is inherent to the human experience. Another way to read this, which could also be read concurrently rather than in opposition to the first interpretation, is that Hemlocke herself is sent by the divine and given the charge to rid all of humanity of their impurities. This defeat of impurity is done by the journey of delving into the heart of it, taking it upon oneself to cleanse it.

Within the biblical framework of this album, this is very reminiscent of Jesus using himself as a conduit to cleanse humanity of their sin. Hemlocke’s use of the word “ride” evokes a sense of journeying, and as will be witnessed throughout this album, the tale of the journey is far more important to the meaning of this album than any destination. It is through the journey that we experience change, joy, torment, confusion, hope, pain, love, all ultimately culminating in growth and divinity.

TRACK 2

Track 2 on the album is “the beginning of the end” where we see Hemlocke caught up in the chaos of being, the highs and lows of the human experience. The beat is blaring and layered, with her vocals explosive and expressive, punching through and dancing around an equally erratic soundscape. We can view this as her fall from Heaven, or the beginning of the end. The tale of what comes after. In both verses Hemlocke is struggling with the temptations of living on earth:

“Sometimes I think I should avoid the

simpleness of filling holes with opioids

I think, I think I know

Till I don’t!”

and

“Sometimes I wish that I could be

the company of pretty girls and pretty boys”

We see her in a frantic mindstate, crying out in confusion, questioning herself and the world around her. On the bridges, we can see that amidst this cacophony and sensation, Hemlock is consumed by existential wondering

“Maybe I’m all part of a plan?

Maybe I’m a sleight to your hand?

Maybe I just don’t understand?!”

In the second bridge, she posits

“Maybe I’m a grain in the sand?

Maybe it’s the way that I am?

Maybe I’m a con of a man!?”

As she dances through the electronic soundscape, despite the chaos of the track and her own confusion, Hemlocke cuts through the noise, clear and confident. On the hook she is racauos and defiant!

“If you want to make me blow,

I wish you would go!”

We can see this as the arrival of the divine persona of Hemlocke landing in the midst of the chaos of the human world. The questions she asks and the struggles she expresses are a mix of the very tactile and physical struggles of humanity, and the spiritual inquiries that these generate for humans in the pursuit of clarity.

TRACK 3

 “head shoulders knees ankles” represents the true start of the adventure, where we see Hemlocke embracing her human life, being caught in the games of humanity, revealing herself as the apple of temptation, all the while being caught up in a chase herself. Gone is the existential questioning, and now Hemlocke is fully caught up in the game of life.

This track carries the harried, whimsical, almost delirious energy of love that you would get from Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with the narrative following a “jealous angel” whom Hemlocke is following around as the angel causes issues, striking a man to fall in love with Hemlocke, initiating an absurd love triangle.

With a relentless organ punctuating the thumping 80’s drums that drive the beat, this song feels like playing a deadly game of tag through Dracula’s mansion.

If the Hemlocke’s vocal performance on the previous track was explosive and erratic, then her performance on the chorus of this song is almost hysterical in its speed and register. I use hysterical here deliberately, knowing its history as a term to institutionalize women, as there is an almost joyous sense of insanity that is embraced and celebrated throughout this album. Like reading the final passage in “The Yellow Wallpaper” and inexplicably giggling as you, too, see the woman creeping through the wallpaper.

Hemlocke’s pursuit of this angel is self-destructive, and she makes it clear that this angel is self-interested, but Hemlocke cannot help being drawn to her.

The song ends with a beat switch where Hemlocke switches from her high-energy storytelling to a softer, more intimate passage that switches focus, prospectively speaking directly to the angel in a plea:

“So stay with me, forever.

Make this place, a heaven-sent

The more I see, the better

Hell, we can break his arms together

Pick up the glory that you’re tabled to

Help me enjoy my little rendezvous of age”

We see Hemlocke desperate to claim this angel, moving from chasing her to begging her once that doesn’t work. She bargains, offers sacrifice, and ultimately we see this is all for the momentary thrill. Hemlocke is intoxicated with infatuation, aware but unwilling to change if it could mean possessing this apple of her eye.

Looking at the moral implications of Christianity here, Hemlocke’s behavior in this track is drenched in sin, discussing the pursuits of physical pleasure, drugs, and even violence, continuing her “fall”.

We see, as we do for most of the album, her boldly choosing a third option for herself, reading in her escape as if it were from the original thread. It is important to note here that these actions don’t make her right, but it makes her real.

TRACK 4

w-w-w-w-w feels like when the adrenaline has finally ended, and the world begins to fade back in with all the aches and pains. It starts with a muffled ambulance siren before smoothing into a spacey instrumental, giving the impression that all the energy of the previous track resulted in a tragic crash, leaving us to pick up the pieces in this one.

You can read this track as a continuation of the story of the last, with the man from the previous track succeeding in marrying her, or you could read it as its own vignette of life as a woman, viewed through the lens of Christian spirituality, and what gender roles were often bestowed upon women through this framework. This fantasy she indulged now fades, but not her determination to escape.

Though brief, the verses on this song detail a girl bound by her circumstances, forced into a marriage with an older man.

“She was a very lonely girl

You brought some racial epithets

–the little troublemaker”

He said I want you as my wife

Your family is in pain and strife

Thank goodness girl they’ll take you”

We see Hemlocke’s position in this relationship as bound not only by patriarchal and classist limitations, but also by racial ones, with all three being used in Christian teachings at one time or another to establish social hierarchies.

The second verse is even more brief, but adds crucial context, saying

“She close windows and open doors

They’re headed to the gates of hell”

We see that the decision to marry results in worldly opportunities, “doors opening” for Hemlocke, but the metaphorical closing of a window seems to represent the death of freedom portals to the open world. It is the cost of her decision.

The hook coalesces this image and introduces Hemlocke’s sentiments on the situation. We see the reference to Sunday here, which in the Christian religion represents the seventh holy day when God rested after creating the world, and is the day that most Christian denominations attend Church to worship. By placing “Sunday” in this hook, Hemlocke compares the idea of her worship of her husband, a common concept in Christian practice, and rejects it, singing

“I can’t even fathom waking up the man on Sunday morning

Cooking him some breakfast, brewing coffee,

Why would she do that when he’s already got

One foot in the grave.

I would rather kill myself

 than look him in the eyes and say:

I want your love”

We see that even in her circumstances, the protagonist refuses to surrender what little is within her direct power. Her power doesn’t come from any outward exertion of power, but rather in the eternal power of self-autonomy, as she stands against the society around her. It is important too that what she is denying is not her own love, but the acknowledgment of needing his. What she is withholding is the confirmation and actualization of his worldview that sees him as the benevolent ruler of his household.

TRACK 5

Moses sits as track 5 in a 10-track album, and signals a switch in the narrative, propelling it into a tale of liberation. Moses is one of the most venerated figures in Black Christianity because of the role that he played in freeing the Jewish people from Egypt. When “Select Parts of the Holy Bible, for the use of the Negro Slaves in the British West-India Islands,” colloqially known as the Slave Bible or the Negro Bible, was created in 1807, it omitted large portions deemed too rebellious, such as the tale of Exodus, for this very reason.

The track opens up with Hemlocke singing the beautifully written hook, backed by a choir singing:

“These days I run blindfolded, use my two hands to part the seas like Moses,

I won’t dissolve into pillars of salt, baby, ‘

lest I be swept away! These days, I run blindfolded

Pierce my two hands so it would seem I’m chosen

I won’t dissolve, I’ll push through the trough

Until my final dying day!”

This repetition is reminiscent of the use of chants in gospel music, generating synchrony in praise, giving the song a feeling of being communal and grand.

This hook also carries an allusion to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in the bible throught he lines “I won’t dissolve into pillars of salt.” In the Bible, Sodom and Gomorrah are cities that become so infested with sin that God decides to destroy them. Before doing so, he tells a man named Lot to leave the city and take his family, and not look back at the city being destroyed, because he must move forward. As he and his family are leaving, his wife looks back and is turned to salt.

In her hook, we see Hemlocke not only assert that she refuses to lament on the past, but more importantly, we see her once again placing herself in a known story and rewriting the role of womanhood in it for herself. Lot’s wife in the Bible is not named and commits the folly of looking back: Hemlocke refuses both of these fates.

At this stage of the story, we see Hemlocke embrace the process of the journey, no longer consumed with a need to chase, discovering a sense of divinity within herself, which she trusts to help her navigate the world “blindfolded”.

TRACK 6

One of the first songs to be heard from this album is “Sever the Blight” a song with an explosive chorus and personality, set atop galloping 80’s drums that quickly caught my attention in 2023. The video for this song gives a first taste into the captivating aesthetic of Hemlocke Springs: fantastical and deeply human. There is an element of Hemlock Springs’ music and visual aesthetics that I can only describe as ethereally earthly. Her fantasy doesn’t supersede reality, it enhances it. Injects it with color and light.

Thematically, it links back to the narratives of w-w-w-w-w, with Hemlocke being caught in a relationship where she feels trapped and beholden to her partner, with the first verse reading

“Where are you my lady?

I’ve been in the basement.

She tied up my ankles, as a mere defacement.

It’s so charming, charming, he’ll find a replacment for me.

He wondered what I liked, I see the flowers in his hand

Bluebells and dahlias, tied with a white ribbon.

They are my favorite, I heave a sighing breath.”

Here we see the courtship process in which Hemlocke is seduced by the man, utilizing his knowledge of her wants and desires to draw her in. The last line about the sighing breath can be read as a breath of whimsy as she falls in love, or it can be read as one of release as it crescendos and transitions into the next lines:

“Our love is miles away,

Will I still wait here for you?”

This acts as the central question throughout the track. As it progresses into the first verse, Hemlocke continues to detail the situation.

“It will get cold in the dark, with those listless days at bay

And the pain I always hide, but the hurt well dare I say it?

So loathsome.”

In these lines, we see Hemlocke questioning the promise of romance now that she finds herself in her loveless union. Gone are the courtship rituals and gestures of love, and in the vacuum, she is forced to reckon with her reality as a placeholder. We see the return to the discussion of race and aesthetics here with the line “You see, I’m no Snow White, the fairest of our land.” The myth of Snow White is introduced at a young age, and for many Black Children, it introduces the word “fair” as an aesthetic marker for beauty in the world.

In this line, it performs two functions: first, that of establishing some of the myths of self that Hemlocke might have held that would have made her believe that she didn’t deserve more than her current situation. It calls back to the rhetoric around her marriage in “w-w-w-w-w” where the man offers to marry her, and because of her financial situation, race, and societal pressures, she agrees to it.

The verse ends with the lines

“Who said I was a fool to think in ways so grand?

I heave a sighing breath, my cavity expands.”

Showing Hemlocke’s current dissatisfaction with her union, as well as an acknowledgment of some fanciful “grand” idea that helped convince her into her situation. She heaves another sighing breath here, but it is now accompanied by the description “my cavity expands”. Breath is sacred.

It is the mechanism through which we oxidize our blood and continue living, as well as to manage and control our emotions, but it is also a direct connection to the world around us. Breathing is an interplay between us and the natural world around us, exchanging CO2 and oxygen that we each then assimilate into our beings. Breath is the link between Hemlocke and the Apple Tree.

At its placement here, the breath feels like release, and the question “will I still wait here for you?” feels rhetorical, a vestigial framework from her old thought process that brought her here, as she moves into her choice to set free.

TRACK 7 & 8

Sense(is) prelude represents another turn in the narrative, shifting into the third and final act. The instrumental is spacy and ethereal, with a chorus of voices peering through the background here and there. You hear the ambient sounds of a horse galloping, continuing the sense of journeying. It also takes us into the songs where Hemlocke shows the most happiness and growth.

This leads into the song Sense(is). The chorus of angelic voices continues over from the last track, now calling out in unison amid a kicking 80’s drum and video game noises. Maintaining the story-like quality of the album, it begins with the first verse

“Once upon a fallow time, four years and seven score

Lied the girl upon the hour, baby, it’s true

Forces drew upon her rank to tame the might she stored

Enlightened, but the impudence inside confused you

Hypnotized, I watch her leave, a valor on the go

With hopes that I could run away too, grew.”

For her live performance, Hemlocke began the night with this song, and it is easy to see why, as it mimics the start of a tale, but in the structure of the album, it appears more as a reflective moment. After being tossed to and fro in the wild dance of life, given the space of the prelude to take a breath, Hemlocke can now assess how far she has come and what that means for her. This is supported by the pre-chorus and chorus that follow:

“I can’t stop it

When the bite takes the bull

Lean on the voice inside, in full

I took the wrong turn down to Hollywood

And now I’ll turn forever

Found an empty cup and I filled it up

Underneath your toys, such dear expenses

Made the weakest want an antidote

With a kiss, come forth and let it in

Found an empty cup, so tormented but I’m awake

So open up my senses!”

Hollywood is located in Los Angeles, the “City of Angels,” which has stood as a major center of media production and holds an infamous reputation for corruption and debauchery. Numerous prominent films have placed the entrance to the underworld or hell, from Tenacious D to The Lightning Thief. In this sense, the lyrics of this song tell two stories simultaneously: first, a very human one of artists slipping beneath the sway of intoxication and misery when pursuing their dreams in music, and the second of the divine Hemlocke character reflecting on her experiences being intoxicated by humanity across the album.

TRACK 9

Watching an interview that she did with Anthony Fantano, she talks about how in the course of making the song “set me free” she originally intended to write a song about finding personal freedom, but how its final version would most likely be read as a song about sex. I think that ultimately, the song talks about both, especially with the discussion around temptation and female accessibility to love and romance. The first verse of the song demonstrates this dual meaning, saying:

“Heed me when I call till the morning comes

We could fly away

Lead me into bliss and love me with your lips

Leave me with no words to say.”

Here we see the most positive representations of love and romance than we have across the album. This love manifests from the growth Hemlocke has undergone throughout the course of the album, her new sense of self allowing her to navigate the game of romance as an equal rather than a reluctant chess piece. The hook sings:

And I might get a little anxious, and I might get a little shy

But I just wanna be your canvas, you know why?

You got me singing, baby

I hope you wanna set me free

I hope you wanna lose your mind

And if there’s nothing to think about, think twice

Got me singing, baby

I hope you wanna set me free

I hope you wanna lose your mind

And we could do it over again.”

In contrast to the images of manipulation and entrapment that romantic moments have held previously on the album, here we see Hemlocke not only as an enthusiastic participant in the game of life, but we also see that she is experiencing a new sense of liberation through this discovery as well.

TRACK 10

The closing track “be the girl” shows Hemlocke writing an ode to her former self, and heartfelt appreciation. It feels like after the journey of the album, her returning home to find it unchanged yet unrecognizable due to what she has experienced.

Both the verses in this song show Hemlocke lamenting the past, things gone that can never be again. Saying goodbye to not only the dreams of her past, but also mourning the person she used to be, naive enough to believe in dreams she now knows too much to hope for anymore. The hook reinforces this feeling, singing:

“There’s a time and a place

That I thought I knew, but now I know I can’t

Be the girl I used to know

Even though I thought I could”

It is a bittersweet track, as is the reality of growing up. Though it holds space to grieve what is lost over the course of the album, it is a track that is liberating in its bold acceptance of reality.

It is the hero at the end of the Hero’s Journey, walking away with the imperfect answer they hadn’t even considered to search for at the beginning.

Fantasy is often a fraught realm for Blackness, often carrying harsh backlash when it appears in worlds whose audiences decided they did not belong, in properties as recent as the Game of Thrones spin-off “House of the Dragon” and “The Little Mermaid” remake. It was important for me to write this because I have a deep love for Black art and imagination and the important role it plays in promoting beauty and hope in Black life. I wanted to make sure I spent some time to celebrate a piece of art that I feel carries the spirit of Black imagination into a modern hyper-pop vessel.

This is one of my favorite albums that has been released in 2026 so far, and I enjoy the ways in which it boldly carves out an identity and space for itself. Though Hemlocke Springs said she had no grand concept for this album when creating it, I believe that through the natural consequence of art, her expressing the different questions and experiences through symbols and sound, it naturally wove its own narrative.

This album is a worldly one, concerned with the manic, explosive experiences of life, from the highs to the lows. It is concerned with the body and sensation, with petty jealousies and seductive urges, the self and the other. It is a mirror, from the self to the world and back again. How the world’s visage, terrifying or beautiful, is what we have and continue to make of it.

[Originally posted June 14th, 2026]