Bleep

Ghouls and monsters are nothing compared to the horrors of the real world illuminated through woods’ pen, marking this a far cry from the more lighthearted tone of 2023’s Maps. The doll, untangleable from its racist origins, becomes a vessel for unpacking childhood ills, which stay to haunt us throughout our lives. woods injects global folklore, eclectic media and vintage horror samples, and studied philosophical and historic references into his immense wordplay and detailed narratives, supported by a veritable who’s who of features and producers that don’t back down from a challenge.

While woods admonishes the hubris of man, his compatriot Kenny Segal imbues steamy imagistic tracks with wailing horns, and turns beats into nocturnal forest chase scenes via growling bass and crispy lofi piano. Cosmic embryonic jazz stomps and marches to noir psychedelic twangs, ghostly theremin, and endless loops of minor key chords, unresolved like a recurring nightmare. woods and co. chillingly recontextualise nursery rhymes as they wrest out their pains, trilling synths and droning horror strings contrasted against funky bass licks and boom bap adjacent rhythms, while dubbed out horns echo through a colliding clattering beat on ‘Lead Paint Test’ where memories leak out of cracks in the walls.

GOLLIWOG is the host of difficultly necessary conversations, which billy woods delivers unerringly.

First off, congrats on making one of the best albums of the year. Thinking about your previous album Maps with Kenny Segal inspired by being able to resume touring after the pandemic, is there a confluence of events which set the scene for the horror themes explored on GOLLIWOG?

Thank you! I don’t think there was any particular impetus for the theme of GOLLIWOG, other than the horror themes are things that have always appealed to me, and are present in a lot of my catalogue. It was kinda just something that I had in my back pocket.

Haunting as the whole record is, one moment has truly possessed us; the harrowing sample at the end of the track 'Misery' from the 1998 film Beloved. Very interested to hear more on its usage and inspiration.

I love that novel, my mother gave it to me to read as a teenager, and when I was looking for things to fill in the gaps on the album, it just fit perfectly. I mean, the whole idea is that I like this woman in Misery a lot! I want her enough that I am willing to play my role, but in my heart I want it just to be me and her, and that sample really conveys the idea, while adding another level of context to the overall theme.

Noting the great cinematic and literary influences explored on the record, are there any other albums or music that have inspired GOLLIWOG? Or anything that has been on repeat for you generally this year, if you had a personal Top 3 albums for 2025 you could share?

I think many of the cinematic and literary influences are in the album, like, Bradbury, King, Kubrick, Toni Morrison, and so on. I have mentioned to other people that I also really enjoyed and drew inspiration for Mariana Enriquez book Things We Lost in the Fire.

Top 3 for 2025:
Preservation & Gabe 'Nandez - Sortilège
Earl Sweatshirt - Live Laugh Love
Bruiser Wolf - POTLUCK

Given the current list so far is already a wealth of riches, are there any other producers or musicians on a wishlist that you'd still love to work with?

Madlib, maybe a full project with EL-P, Sebb Bash. If anyone can convince DJ Haram to actually give me more than one beat that would work too!

The in-depth CD liner notes for the album are beautifully written, presenting themselves as an 'extract from a future memoir'. Wry smiles aside, are there plans for any longform fictional/biographical prose in the future?

My publisher is currently waiting for it, so yes!

Speaking of the future, and looking back on what has been a tumultuous year, any personal highs of note in 2025? And what is next for you and Backwoodz Studioz in 2026 and beyond?

This whole year has been great for the label; Doseone & Steel Tipped Dove, Gabe Nandez & Preservation, Kenny Segal and Human Error Club, Wino Willy & Matthew, August Fanon, the new Armand Hammer & Alchemist…a lot of great stuff. Next year we are super excited about the new ELUCID album, DJ Haram, Curly Castro, and a bunch more stuff.