EMMY THE GREAT
first love
Release Date: 09/02/2009
for fans of emmylou, joni, conor oberst, 60's girl groups and bon iver. emmy the great may not be a new name to some, for singer songwriter emma lee-moss has been reducing rowdy crowds to an awed silence for some time, releasing her debut single in april 2006. that a debut album arrives now, is testament emmy's steadfast refusal to dilute or dumb-down her sometimes uncomfortably personal vision, in favour of easy packaging. initially, emmy started out playing solo acoustic shows, being invited to tour with the likes of martha wainwright, bright eyes and tilly and the wall, but since the release of the single 'gabriel' in november 2007, emmy the great has developed from solo venture to full collaborative ensemble. the album that emerged is the deft, determined and thoroughly beguiling 'first love'. its title might make it sound like a record about 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. emmy's 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. the songs are the abstracted tales of protagonists drawn in an imagined, yet all too real world. a stage set behind the net curtains and garden gates of our own; a skewed vision of the home counties, radio 4, romanticised war time novels and evelyn waugh, sound tracked by noel coward and sunday school choirs. like black clouds over a picnic, 'we are safe' wonders how the world has the temerity to continue after personal catastrophe. 'we almost had a baby' reveals how close, messy relationships can come to unplanned permanence and 'mia' asks which song would be appropriate to hum during a car crash?
| CD code: ch0307cd | 11.99 GBP |
