In “Hatter’s Mad Emporium,” Bog Witch, aka Wendy DuMond, delivers a phantasmagoric swirl of psychedelic folk and experimental pop. It has you crawling into the antique velvet of Wonderland’s darker corners. Released June 14, 2025, “Hatter’s Mad Emporium” plunges headfirst into the surreal, embracing madness as an aesthetic and narrative force. Written and produced entirely by DuMond, the track is layered with toybox instrumentation of ukulele, sitar, brassy flares, and the unmistakable flavor of Victorian strangeness stretched through a kaleidoscope.
DuMond’s pointed, intimate, and wildly expressive vocals stand out, mostly. She sings like she tells. There’s a distinct storytelling cadence to her delivery, her voice rising and splintering as she drops the haunting line, “She knows not what she did,” before diving back into a jarring deadpan refrain: “He says, ‘eat me.’” It’s part nursery rhyme, part fever dream. Now there’s a reason this quirky line exists. Alice eats to eat away her discomfort with the world. It’s just exploring the darker aspects of Lewis Carroll’s world of Wonderland, fleshed out here.
The production is dense without being overcrowded. Mike Gruwell’s drums thump like footsteps through a warped dream, while Memphis Mick’s sitar snakes through the background like a mischievous thought. The horn section is playfully chaotic, thanks to William Haubrich’s brass studio. It punctuates the madness with jolts of theatrical energy, reminiscent of circus music on absinthe. And yet, through all this, there’s structure. There’s a beat you can latch onto, harmonies that follow you long after the song ends, a chorus that loops in your head like a spell.
Accompanied by a saturated, high-definition video teeming with surreal Victoriana and slow-burning kaleidoscopic imagery, Bog Witch is taking you places with “Hatter’s Mad Emporium.” Fans of Kate Bush, early Tori Amos, or CocoRosie will find themselves delightfully unnerved. Get into this rabbit hole gleefully on Spotify.
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Review by: Naomi Joan