Emmy The Great
Just how close can a floundering relationship come to unplanned permanence, and what is the last dice role in its interminable power struggle? We Almost Had A Baby is the delicately beguiling new single from Emmy The Great, released on 10th November on Close Harbour.
“Our guitarist Euan says our songs are passive aggressive - people think we're harmless unless they're really listening". With its unassuming introduction, an amber swell of 60s girl group melancholia, and a startling dénouement; Emmy’s new single fits her guitarist’s synopsis entirely.
It also proves indicative of the savage observations and stark admissions that comprise their forthcoming debut album. Cloaked in arrangements of disarming simplicity, Emmy The Great’s First Love is set for release in January.
It arrives self-funded and self-produced, Emmy’s answer to the pigeonholers and industry insiders who would have her painted differently; resisting the overtures of label bosses and managers, proposed collaborations with Hit Factory songwriters, and insightful appeals to “put a few more choruses inâ€. Produced in collaboration with guitarist Euan Hinshelwood, and pianist Tom Rogerson, it was recorded at The Earlies’ lovably dilapidated studios in rural Lancashire
“It seemed the right place to go†explains Emmy, “This little room in the middle of nowhere, with borrowed equipment and no lightbulbs, was the perfect antithesis to all my previous bad experiences with producers. The Earlies were really patient and let us mess around as much as we wanted with arrangements.â€
The album that emerged is a deft and determined debut. Its title may evoke the first, exquisite pangs of youthful mutual desire but in a typically Emmy-esque subversion, the name is actually taken from Samuel Beckett’s depressing novella about a violently misogynistic lover. First Love is a hard-won innocence-to-experience saga about a destructive but ultimately character-forming real-life relationship, in which the songwriting process was her final act of catharsis.