Cindergarden is primary music alias of Jaymie Valentine. Ms. Valentine has been distilling her uniquely dark brew of music since 2006, and produced two critically acclaimed full-length albums, “Underground Light Machine” and “The Clandestine Experiment”. Each album reveals a different shade of Cindergarden, and I highly recommend both of them to those who love darkwave, industrial and melodic vocals in general.

Jaymie’s newest release, “Grim Confections” is a amalgamation of genre influences from all spheres of electronica, with poison sprinkles and a pop cherry on top. This album is full of imagery and stories supporting the album’s theme that “things are not as they appear to be,” and the lyrics of tracks like “Gingerbread” tell a chilling allegorical tale of Candyland gone mad. As a composer, Jaymie utilizes sounds and stylistic aspects from IDM, dubstep, glitch, and breakcore, avoiding the played out goth-industrial sounds and structure. Welcome to the new age of darkness; a bright, seductive, neon darkness.

The musical subjects this album draws from are eclectic and yet blended together in a flawlessly homogeneous fashion. Jaymie cites Skinny Puppy, Mike Patton, Baseck, and the music that plays from ice cream trucks as being important inspirations for her. A ice cream truck type theme repeats throughout the album, and gives it a weird urban dream feeling. You can really hear the Mike Patton influence on the closing track, a dark lounge jam entitled: “Rainbow’s End”.

There are a lot of standout tracks on this album, and its difficult to say what my personal favorites are. “Candles on a Cake” is a great opening song, with a infectious groove and a hook that will be stuck in your head for days. The drum programming in “Hex” particularly impressed me. The hiphop groove and bottom that are often missing in industrial compositions really filled out the track. Plus the sample of a witch cackling is too good to miss. “Mesmerize” is another super strong track, displaying Jaymie’s IDM chops.

“Grim Confections” visual aesthetic combines Alice in Wonderland, circus fun-house themes, and the work of modern artists such as Camille Rose Garcia. For the artwork of “Grim Confections”, Jaymie turned to her long-time collaborator Allison Meierding and the amazing LA-based photographer Marianne Williams. Allison also created the artwork for the two prior Cindergarden albums, and her dream-like style has definitely become a integral part of Cindergarden.

Aside from Cindergarden, modeling for Insidious Clothing, and running her own record label Looking Glass Records, Jaymie also writes scores for films. She scored a recently released short Breast Cancer Awareness video by Love Machine Films.

Stay Well. Get Well. Find Cures. Fight Back. from Love Machine Films on Vimeo.

A true new renaissance woman; she is also a yoga instructor, artist, and makes her own vegan cosmetic products. Jaymie is will soon be unveiling a new side project between her and the Tleilaxu Music Machine, and has been talking to On Holiday about releasing a record on Looking Glass Records.

“Grim Confections” and other Cindergarden goodies are available at:

www.cindergarden.com