Emma Back - If I Knew

I first came across the work of Emma Back when I was working as Music Editor at The F-Word. She sent me her song 'Shadow' and told me about her community musician and activist work. I was sufficiently intrigued to arrange an interview with her. 'If I Knew' sees her continue to work with looping and violin, but there's a summery feel to this take on introspection that feels refreshing. Always worth a listen. 

Emma Back - If I knew, Live at Richmond House Concert 2019

This is Emma Back performing 'If I knew' live at Richmond House in 2019. Emma recorded a full live session from her living room during lockdown back in May, which you can watch here.

Fantasy Festival number 12: The Lineup

Emma Back: Emma Back is a singer, songwriter, violinist, teacher and community musician from Vermont. Her music is strongly influenced by Greek and Balkan traditions, and I interviewed her for The F-Word back in 2018, shortly before the release of her debut album Little World. You can find out more here.

Julia Jacklin: Australian singer and songwriter Julia Jacklin is two albums into a steadily building career. She seems to lean towards the Throwing Muses end of indie rock, and as with fellow compatriot Hatchie, her songwriting is drenched in sunshine and makes for great feel good music. You can find out more here.

Half Waif: Nandi Rose Plunkett's fourth album, The Caretaker, the follow up to the critically acclaimed Lavender, was released back in March. Seemingly more electronic and textured than her previous album, it builds on the success of it's earlier sibling and should see a steady return in terms of more people hearing her and being aware of her sophisticated songwriting and voice, which is reminiscent of early Laura Nyro at times. You can find her on Bandcamp.

Laura Gibson: Singer, songwriter and multi instrumentalist Laura Gibson has been a staple of the US underground for some time now. Whereas 2012's La Grande had overtones of gothic Americana, her most recent album, 2018's Goners, showcased a spikiness and an anger that hadn't been as apparent in her earlier writing. She will continue to surprise us. You can find out more here.

Cat Power: From underground star to overground star, to well respected singer, songwriter and musician, an influence and touchstone to many of the current generation of musicians,  Chan Marshall has more than earned her place. You can find out more here.

Tracey Thorn: The legend that is Tracey Thorn first came to the public's attention in post punk band the Marine Girls back in 1980. She and Ben Watt formed Everything But The Girl as students in Hull in 1982. Since EBTG finished in 2000, she's become a writer, and her return to music in 2018 with the album Record, marked a new exciting direction. You can find out more here.

Regina Spektor: Russian American singer, songwriter and pianist Regina Spektor has been making delightfully clever, slightly off kilter records since 2001. She's one of those artists who just gets better and better, making music that is straightforward enough to not be out of place on Radio 2 ('Samson') to complex pop baroque's such as 'Small Bill$'. You can find out more here.

PJ Harvey: Polly Jean Harvey's debut album Dry was released 28 years ago this year. It is being re-released, along with her entire back catalogue of albums, over the next twelve months. As influenced by Captain Beefheart as she is compared to Patti Smith, she has twice won the Mercury Music Prize and she is one of UK music's quieter stateswomen. You can find out more here.

Songs of the year: Number 18

I interviewed Emma Back earlier this year, about her (then) upcoming album Little World. Of the tracks on the album, 'Shadow' was the one that I liked the most. There's a real edge to it and a sense of barely contained anger that works really well with Back's violin and loop pedal. The result is intense and emotionally charged, and it feels like it will be a song that transcends this moment and stands the test of time.

End of year roundup: Music

Welcome to part two of this years end of year roundup!

Today we're covering music.

Favourite breaking artist of the year:

Miya Folick

Premonitions was surely the most casually announced debut album ever? But when you've been quietly releasing songs as strong as 'God is a woman', 'Talking with strangers' and 'Deadbody' for the past year and a bit, you can afford to be confident. Folick is going to be a stealth artist I think, creeping up on people...

Favourite video of the year

Laura Gibson, 'Domestication'

There's some subtle Handmaid's Tale stuff going on in this video... Making it very timely as well as very powerful.

Favourite gig of the year

Florence + The Machine, Manchester Arena, 23 November

As discussed previously, I didn't write a gig review, I wrote a fan essay instead. If you'd like to read a proper review, you can do so here. 

Artist to watch in 2019

Suzi Wu

One of this years BBC Introducing alumni, and a sharply acerbic artist with great attitude and beats. Worth keeping an eye on if 'Taken Care Of' and 'Teenage Witch' are anything to go by. 

Albums of the year

10) Guttfull, Tits and Nails
9) Virginmarys, Northern Sun Sessions
8) She Makes War, Brace For Impact
7) Emma Back, Little World
6) Tami Neilson, Sassafrass
5) Santigold, I don’t want: The Goldfire Sessions
4) Tancred, Nightstand
3) Let’s Eat Grandma, I’m All Ears
2) Miya Folick, Premonitions
1) Florence + The Machine, High As Hope


Songs of the year will follow in separate posts, starting tomorrow...

Spooky (but not in a Halloween sense) playlist compiling

This month's F-Word Music blog post is now up on the site. Because we are well into the period I like to think of as Peak Touring (new university term, end of year lists pending, Christmas wish lists being compiled...) there has been an awful lot of stuff to cram in this time. 

By comparison, the playlist was pretty easy and came together almost immediately. I think I had to move, maybe, two songs around and that was it, it was done.

It was when I was listening to it back that I realised how very apt a lot of the songs are in terms of the past year. A lot are very pertinent to the #MeToo era and, most recently, the Kavanagh appointment in the US. I feel as though I've been stockpiling these songs in my mind, and in my Spotify lists, just waiting for the right moment to put them all together. 

Some are from new artists, some are from established artists. Some were recorded for major labels, some were self released. But what they all seem to share is a kind of conscious or unconscious commentary on the state of womanhood and the world in 2018. 

I'm really pleased that so many artists have tapped into their inner rage this year. It would be nice to live in a utopian world, or at least a more restful one, but that seems remote and, as with all art, music reflects that. And provides a source of inspiration and solace in a fucked up world.

Image is the cover image for Laura Gibson's new album Goners. It is out now. 

A riveting interviewee, but a piece that was a mountain to climb

I have finally published my interview with Vermont based singer/songwriter, teacher and activist Emma Back over on The F-Word.

This piece has had a really long gestation period and has been beset by problems right from the beginning.

None of this was Emma's fault, I hasten to add. She proved to be a charming, thoughtful, insightful woman with a lot to say about the craft of songwriting, about community, singing, performance and activism, not to mention the highly dystopian world we happen to be living in.

But sometimes, even with a brilliant interviewee, and interview, you end up feeling like a piece is doomed to fail, to never see the light of day.

And so it was in this case.

We actually did the interview one evening (my time, afternoon by her time) in late April. Initially we had a go at doing it via Skype but the connection kept failing at her end so, after a few aborted attempts, we went with FaceTime because it was working on her phone. I'd never used FaceTime before so it was a new experience for me and, save for the fact we couldn't see each other, the batteries in my walkman died about two minutes in and I had to frantically replace them, oh, and occasionally the connection would cut out for a few seconds, we muddled through.

Emma is a very engaging and positive woman, despite everything she's been faced with over the past few years. She genuinely believes that music is a healing force for good and appears to inhabit a space as a community musician that has evolved organically, and that allows her to play to her strengths.

Her debut album, Little World, was released in late May and the original idea was that I would have the interview ready to go up on The F-Word about a week before the album's release.

This didn't happen for a number of reasons.

Firstly, about a fortnight after our interview I reached something of an impasse with my health and with my day job, which meant I had to stop transcribing the interview and cease most of my writing work altogether in order to concentrate on reaching a more stable situation with my health. This took a really long time and, ultimately, it's an ongoing process. In the interview I talked a lot with Emma about issues around balancing health with creativity and workloads so it was quite apt, or ironic, (depending on how you look at it) that I would be placed in a situation where I was fighting a similar battle while working on the piece.

Then, there was the editing process. For reasons perhaps linked to the above, both this piece and my last big interview piece for The F-Word have been very slow to finish, but also massively long winded once they reached the editing stage. We have a two edits process at The F-Word and, in the case of this piece and the interview I did with Vivien Jones of Kookie magazine, the second edits came back with the equivalent of lots of red pen and 'must do better' on them.

'Do better' I did, eventually, but, compared to my recent Florence + The Machine piece (which pretty much wrote itself and didn't come back from the second edit with any major changes), it was a very, very hard slog.

I'm hoping that the strain and stresses don't show up in the final published piece. I don't think they do, and I'm hoping that the piece will do well if only because I think Emma has a lot of really good things to say.

The Little World album is out now, and is available on Bandcamp and Spotify. There are CD's which I think should be available at independent record stores, though I haven't tested this theory.

Emma Back "Shadow" Tiny Desk Contest Submission 2017

I interviewed avant folk artist Emma Back in late April. Her album, Little World, was released on 25th May and the idea was to have the interview ready in time to coincide.

Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I'm only now starting to see the finish line in terms of completing the piece.

I do think the interview will be well worth waiting for though because she is a very intelligent and thoughtful artist, with a lot to say both musically and in interview.

In the meantime, this is 'Shadow', a live track that displays Back's layering technique beautifully.