For Folk's Sake » Emmy The Great

Playlist | Brian’s Mixtape #46: the Return of the Owl

Ashleigh — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:45:15 +0000

Dearest readers,

I am well aware that my year-long sabbatical from the making of exquisite playlists has been a burden on all of us. I myself have felt the strain of my creative talents falling to waste as I travelled the globe in search of even deeper musical insight and a little respite from the ever-increasing celebrity that plagued me so after my starring role as Hedwig’s understudy in the Harry Potter films.

But 2012 has brought me back to England’s green and pleasant land and I will be presenting you with regular aural delights once again. My first offering presents sixteen tracks from sixteen different 2011 albums. All were released by artists I have admired much before last January (as you know, I am owl who is loathe to fall behind the zeitgeist) and have continued to prove their worth in the last year.

No doubt you are as well informed as I and already know every lyric, and if not, I hope you enjoy these newfound musical gems. If you would like to enter into discussion with me on the Twitter it will not ruffle my feathers in the slightest. You will find me at @LordBrianWilson.

Until next time, dear readers, I bid you adieu.

Brian

Listen to the playlist using Spotify: Brian’s 2011

Laura Marling – Sophia
Death Cab for Cutie – Stay Young, Go Dancing
Bon Iver – Calgary
Bombay Bicycle Club – Shuffle
Metronomy – The Look
Emmy The Great – Iris
Slow Club – If We’re Still Alive
Arcade Fire – Rococo
Pete And The Pirates – Washing Powder
PJ Harvey – The Words That Maketh Murder
Gruff Rhys – Sensations In The Dark
Fleet Foxes – Battery Kinzie
Iron & Wine – Me And Lazarus
Brett Anderson – Brittle Heart
The Leisure Society – Dust On The Dancefloor
Summer Camp – Ghost Train

News | Emmy the Great announces live dates

Lynn Roberts — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 13:14:29 +0000

Fresh from a Christmas that we like to think looked exactly like this, Emmy the Great has announced a string of live appearances.

Emmy will play 4 dates in mainland Europe this month, and a one-off London show in March. The last UK headline show for her excellent album Virtue.

Then at the end of March she’s off with Noah & the Whale, as the support act for their UK tour.

Thurs 26th Jan – Teatro Lara, Madrid
Fri 27th Jan – Cafe & Pop Torgal, Oerense
Sat 28th Jan – Auditorio del Ayuntamiento, Vigo
Sun 29th Jan – La 2 de Apolo, Barcelona

Sun 11th March – London Queen Elizabeth Hall (last UK headline show for Virtue)

Sat 17th March – Dublin Olympia (supporting Noah & the Whale)
Tue 20th March – Edinburgh Picture House (supporting Noah & the Whale)
Wed 21st March – Newcastle Academy (supporting Noah & the Whale)
Thur 22nd March – Sheffield Academy (supporting Noah & the Whale)
Sat 24th March – York Barbican (supporting Noah & the Whale)
Sun 25th March – Portsmouth Guildhall (supporting Noah & the Whale)

Album | Emmy The Great & Tim Wheeler – This Is Christmas

For Folk's Sake — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 11:00:12 +0000

In a year with more full-length festive offerings than any in recent memory, there has still been something essentially ‘Christmassy’ missing. She & Him provided the Midnight Mass feeling – respectful, stately, something you can be sure your Gran will appreciate while enjoying the pageantry of it yourself; Michael Buble’s set of holiday standards is the Queen’s Speech in musical form – nobody admits to tuning in but it somehow manages to get on the telly anyway; Justin Bieber, meanwhile, has turned out the quintessential kiddie’s present – poorly made tat to keep people who don’t know any better entertained for less than a tenner.

This Is Christmas, though, is none of those things. Instead it’s a just a shitload of good fun, interspersed with the occasional well-directed emotional tug. It’s a bunch of tinsel to brighten up the hall. It’s a new set of fairy lights with all of the bulbs working. It’s the moment at the Christmas party where you get drunk and slag off the HR department.

There’s just one cover – ‘Marshmallow World’ is a suitably light-hearted romp that dates back to 1949 and has been sung by Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra et al. Here it is fitted with some fresh AA batteries courtesy of Tim Wheeler’s spiky guitar, while verse two gives a first chance to hear Emmy the Great’s disarmingly sweet vocals.

The offbeat charm of the album is never better realised than on two glorious little vignettes – ‘(Don’t Call Me) Mrs Christmas’ and ‘Jesus the Reindeer’. The first is a classic Emmy lyric about the jealous rage of Santa Claus’ insecure other half – “you bring your presents all around the world/but what do you get up to with all those other girls?” – building to a soaring, bell-ringing chorus. If there’s a better song about dumping ol’ Saint Nicolas this year, I’ll eat my elf’s hat.

‘Jesus the Reindeer’ starts with the roll call of ‘Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet…’etc that we know and love from any number of Christmas films before adding the Son of God to the list. Clocking in at just 1minute 46secs, Emmy nevertheless finds time to add Joey & Chandler from Friends and Sarah Palin to the group of sleigh-draggers, while somehow managing to make them sound more like a kind of festive X Men than the overworked delivery men they are in reality.

There’s plenty more to enjoy, from Wheeler’s Beach Boys-aping ‘Christmas Day (I Wish I Was Surfing)’ to ‘Christmas Moon’, which revives the 60s girl group vibe Emmy nailed on ‘We Almost Had a Baby’. The album ends with Wheeler bashing out a woozy Silent Night on the electric guitar and joking “we’ll do a Christmas album”. Thankfully, the joke led to this. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m off to hang some tinsel, buy some new fairy lights and slag off the HR department.

Words: Rory Dollard

And if that’s got you feeling all Christmassy, don’t forget to check out our compilation For Folk’s Sake It’s Christmas 2011, which is being sold to raise money for the Integrated Cancer Centre. It features songs from The Leisure Society, Kathryn Williams, Devon Sproule, Darren Hayman Caitlin Rose and many more. For Folk’s Sake It’s Christmas 2011 is available to pre-order now from Bandcamp.

Live | Emmy the Great @ Wrexham Central Station, 06/10/11

For Folk's Sake — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:50:49 +0000

I’ve recently had reason to move back to my childhood home, an event I regarded with no little trepidation. Aside from the obvious benefit of rent-free accommodation with meals thrown in, my teenage memories are of a musical wasteland punctuated only by the dubious delights of the International Eisteddfod. Imagine my relief to find that times they have been a-changin’ – Wrexham’s Central Station has lined up some quality gigs this autumn, starting with Emmy the Great on tour with their sophomore album Virtue.

We arrive just in time to catch support act Stealing Sheep performing over the sound of rain bouncing off the venue’s tin roof. Eye-catchingly arranged around a central drum, the smiling Liverpool trio are in fine harmonic voice, inspiring a singalong and even some pogoing from an excitable couple near the front. It would be surprising not to see the Sheep headline their own tour soon.

In a truly excessive cloud of dry ice, Emma-Lee Moss takes to the stage for a solo ‘Eastern Maria’, and a silence descends over the crowd. The words “spellbound” and “mesmerized” are rapidly becoming clichés in Emmy the Great live reviews, but with lyrics this involving I’ve yet to meet an audience with the cheek not to pay attention. Not that the music lags behind: joined by a four-piece band for a set of old and new material, the sound is both atmospheric and tight. ‘Exit Night’ is luscious and synth-layered, ‘Sylvia’ has less rave but more rock than the album version. Big bad themes of lost love, mythology and dinosaur copulation continue to hold the crowd’s attention before being lightened by a jaunty version of Weezer’s ‘Islands in the Sun’. Now I really want to go on the Weezer Cruise. Thanks Emma.

As always, there is wit and charm in abundance, Moss congratulating the front row on their TopShop finery and initiating a debate into the town’s highlights (our answers: TK Maxx, the Thai shop that sells mysterious varieties of root beer, and that man who tried to take his horse on a train. We were frankly too embarrassed to shout any of these out). She even offers some kindly relationship advice to a newly single audience member, before launching into the apt and shiveringly sparse ‘Trellick Tower’.

Encores include the perennially popular ‘Canopies and Drapes’ before we head out into the rain with big cheesy grins plastered all over our faces. Not at all bad for a schoolnight in the North East Wales badlands. Bring on the Christmas Album.

Natalie Roberts

Christmas things: Emmy the Great, She & Him, Slow Club, Carole King

Lynn Roberts — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 18:30:03 +0000

FFS is sorry, very sorry, to be bringing you Christmas news this early*. We don’t want you to think of us like Tesco, ringing out cynical jingle bells from mid-October, or Boots pushing their Christmas sandwiches when it’s still balmy outside. We’re not like that. Really we’re not.

But the fact is that some of our very favourite people are announcing Christmas-themed offerings and we can’t just ignore them, because they are excellent. So, to minimise the inconvenience, we’re just going to group them all into this here post and say no more about it.

Here goes.

Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler are going to release This is Christmas on 21st November. You can pop over to their Facebook page to download a free track ‘Christmas Day (I wish I was surfing)’ and find out how to get your photos to appear in the album’s booklet. Find out more at terribly unseasonable website thisischristmasalbum.com.

LA legend Carole King is releasing A Christmas Carole on November 1st (which is too early, frankly). It’s produced by her daughter Louise Goffin. And is some full on Christmas cheese. We’re not kidding. Have a look:

The mighty Slow Club have announced their fourth consecutive Christmas show at the Union Chapel on December 19th. Tickets are on sale now here.

She & Him are releasing A Very She & Him Christmas on 21st November. It includes covers of Christmas songs by The Carpenters, the Beach Boys & Elvis Presley. It’s going to be wonderful, here’s the evidence:

*Having said that, the word “Christmas” has been being bandied around FFS HQ since June. No reason, though, certainly nothing like this.

News | Portraits of Emmy the Great, Iron & Wine, Dan Mangan go on show

Lynn Roberts — Sat, 24 Sep 2011 12:39:57 +0000

Dan Mangan

Portraits of Emmy the Great, Dan Mangan, Iron & Wine and Anna Calvi feature in London-based figurative painter Joe Simpson’s exhibition ‘Musician Portraits’ opening next month.

The paintings will be on display from 14th – 30th October at a temporary gallery in the converted library at 16/17 Greek Street, Soho, London W1D 4DR. Entrance is free.

Joe has spent the past year flying all over the world to meet the musicians at their houses, studios and backstage at gigs.

He said: “The paintings have a physicality to them that you don’t get with a photograph. The paint has a specific weight and application and you can see layers and brushmarks in the hair and skin tones of the subjects. I’m really excited to see all the paintings displayed together under one roof for the very first time.

The portraits will be sold after the exhibition, with 25% of the proceeds going to the charity Seeing is Believing.

>> More about the exhibition at Joe Simpson’s website
>> Joe’s twitter

Emmy the Great

Sam Beam (Iron & Wine)

Lisa Hannigan

Anna Calvi

Matt Berninger (The National)

Interview | Schmercury best album nominee Emmy the Great

Lynn Roberts — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 13:07:18 +0000

Emmy the Great’s Virtue is a devastatingly brutal and beautiful record about the break up of a relationship. There was no way we could fail to recognise it in this year’s best album list. FFS’s Rory Dollard said: “Sparse closing track ‘Trellick Tower’ – beautifully rendered with bare piano and a single bruised voice – is leant extra weight by the restraint shown elsewhere.”

For Folk’s Sake: Congratulations, you’ve been nominated for a Schmercury Best Album award (again!). How do you feel?

Emma-Lee Moss: I could not be more excited. I’ve put a big bet on myself to win. And if I don’t I’m going to do the same thing as last year and cry for eight hours straight. Although it might be even sadder this year as I actually have an album out.

I am genuinely very happy by the way. You’ve always been supportive of our music, and the fact that you like this album makes me feel like I didn’t let you down!

Have you paid much attention to the Mercury nominations this year? What do you think of them if so?

I think this year was the first year that I bought a record, listened to it and though, ‘That ought to be nominated for a Mercury.’ (It was the PJ Harvey album.) Since it got nominated I’ve got more involved than usual, because I’ve been talking about it a lot and paying attention to where it is among the favourites. And Elbow, who I love, are in this year again, and I love that this is their third nomination. I would be quite into seeing them win again.

Aside from your own, what’s your favourite album on the Schmercuries list?

I always like a bit of Low Anthem.

What album (released in the past year) have we missed off the list that ought to be on there?

Are you including international records? It looks like you are. If so, my favourite buys of the last year have been Lykke Li, Little Scream, Blood Orange and Best Coast.

How do you feel about Virtue now it’s been released into the world?

I’m feeling quite separate from it now. I think of the songs as how we play them live, not how they are on the record, because we’re rehearsing so much at the moment. And I’m really thinking hard about the next album, and to do that I need to sort of reject the previous one. Like a kidney. But I am also really attached to it, because of what it meant to me while we made it, so it’s proving quite hard to reject.

Did you know it was special when you were making it?

Aw. Thank you. It definitely felt like a turning point in my life. I grew a lot while I was making it. I owe it a lot.

What do you think about the critics and fans’ reaction? Was it what you expected?

I don’t know what I expected! I emerged from this cocoon of the last year and all of a sudden the album was out, and I’ve sort of been on the move ever since. It’s been mad. I haven’t been able to gauge the reaction yet. Stuff like this makes me think that it’s gone well.

What’s your favourite album ever?

Impossible question! I guess Pinkerton and the Green album by Weezer. In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel. Heaven or Las Vegas by Cocteau Twins. Different Light by the Bangles. Oh wait, Best of the Eagles. Yes, my favourite album is Best of the Eagles.

I was joking about the Eagles.

Do you have plans for your next album?

Yes! But I haven’t had time to implement them. I really want a week off to demo these songs I’ve written. Hopefully I’ll get that next week.

We’re sorry that Barclaycard aren’t sponsoring us to give the Schmercuries winner a million pounds (we assume that’s how much the Mercury prize is). If they were, and we did, what would you do with it?

I’d buy us a house, where we both could live.

Playlist | Schmercuries 2011

Helen True — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 12:53:00 +0000

We know that deciding to listen to vast swathes of brilliant music can be difficult, so we thought we’d be nice and put all our Schmercury nominees for 2011 into a playlist for you.

We’d been rather banking on all 12 of the magnificent albums being available in one place but they’re not, so you need to prepare yourself to click about the internet more than once.

Eight of our nominees are available on Spotify, so you can listen to albums from The Leisure Society, Emmy the Great, Mechanical Bride, Dark Dark Dark, Fleet Foxes, The Low Anthem, The Secret Sisters and This is the Kit in one continuous stream of goodness, here:

FFS Schmercuries 2011 – Longlist

Now, be brave. We must urge you to seek out songs from the remaining nominees by marginally more difficult means.

Listen to songs from Rachael Dadd’s album here.
Head here for a bit of Wye Oak.
Enjoy Devon Sproule here.
Middle Brother can be heard here.

The best solution, if you’re a person of means, is to buy them all, then take two days off work to listen to them. That’s certainly what we’d do.

Not voted on the poll yet? You can do so here.

Best album poll: It’s the Schmercuries 2011

Lynn Roberts — Mon, 05 Sep 2011 12:46:00 +0000

On the eve of the Mercury poll, FFS have put together a list of our 12 favourite folk-tinged albums of the past year for our very own Schmercury prize.

We’re going to do things a little differently this year, and we’ll be awarding TWO prizes. The Readers’ Choice, for the album YOU vote for and the Editors’ award, which Reviews editor Ian Parker, Live Editor Helen True, New Bands Editor Alice Sage and I will slug it out over.

Our previous Schmercury Prize winners are…

2009 The Leisure Society – The Sleeper
2010 Cocos Lovers – Johannes (Editors Picks: Broadcast 2000 – Broadcast 2000; Anais Mitchell – Hadestown)

And here are folks that might join them…

The Leisure Society – Into the Murky Water Stream on Spotify | Deezer | FFS review
Emmy the Great - Virtue Stream on Spotify | FFS review
Mechanical Bride - Living with Ants Stream on Spotify | FFS review
Dark Dark Dark – Wild Go Stream on Spotify | FFS review
Wye Oak – Civillian Listen on Myspace | FFS review
Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues Stream on Spotify | FFS review
The Low Anthem - Smart Flesh Stream on Spotify | FFS review
Rachael Dadd - Bite the Mountain Listen on Myspace | FFS review
Middle Brother – Middle Brother Listen on Myspace | FFS review
The Secret Sisters – The Secret Sisters Stream on Spotify | FFS review
This is the Kit – Wriggle Out The Restless Stream on Spotify | FFS review
Devon Sproule – I Love You, Go Easy Listen on Myspace | FFS review

Voting opens later today and there’ll be 2 weeks to vote for your album of the year. But in the meantime, give the list a listen. We can’t recommend these records highly enough.

UPDATE VOTE NOW!

Album: Emmy The Great – Virtue

For Folk's Sake — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 09:30:48 +0000

Emma-Lee Moss, the girl who puts the great into Emmy, is back to with a second album that is sure to build on the devoted fan-base she won with 2009’s memorable First Love.

Her breakthrough back then was considerable. Not Mumford massive, maybe, and perhaps not as ubiquitous as the Marling masses. But for those who were charmed by her disarmingly coquettish tales of fatal car crashes, pregnancy scares and more familiar affairs of the heart, one thing was clear: Emmy was the star turn of the nebulous ‘anti-folk’ movement.

Except for one thing. She didn’t believe such a scene really existed, and wanted even less to be part of it.

Whether anti-folk ever was more than just a neat phrase (see also ‘nu-rave’, or, come to think of it, don’t) is irrelevant to this triumphant follow up. Anti-folk it ain’t, and Second Love it most certainly isn’t. I, for one, would happily have signed up for more of the same, another bittersweet ballad in the vein of ‘City Song’ perhaps, or a third instalment of ‘Easter Parade’, which received two equally lovely airings on First Love. But from the eerie, cheerily dischordant opening strains of ‘Dinosaur Sex’, it is clear the landscape has shifted. It’s a brave move and one that is executed deftly.

Part of the reason appears to be the evolution of Emmy the Great into a full band venture, where previously it had the unshakeable feeling of a solo set embellished by others. Long-time collaborator Euan Hinshelwood is key to proceedings, his guitar sounds noodling and tinkering in the shadows to provide depth and texture. As well as ‘Dinosaur Sex’, which concludes with Emmy surveying what appears to be a nuclear winter in the sweetest voice imaginable, there are other musical curveballs for returning fans to digest. ’Iris’ begins with a loose 80s bassline that was last seen hanging around the Stone Roses’ studio in 1989 wearing nothing but a cheeky smile and begging to be picked up by Mani. Within seconds, it has transformed into a consummate new-wave pop single. Elsewhere, there are choral backing vocals, shades of Enya and Tori Amos and even, on Sylvia, a throbbing dance beat.

The backstory to the album – Emma’s engagement to an atheist who subsequently left her for a life of religion – is an unavoidable part of the album but should not obscure it. Indeed, she allows herself just one naked telling of events, the devastating, sparse closing track ‘Trellick Tower’. It’s a stunning moment, beautifully rendered with bare piano and a single bruised voice, but it is leant extra weight by the restraint shown elsewhere. Where Noah and the Whale and Josh T Pearson have recently made fine albums detailing the gut-wrenching minutae of their broken hearts, here Emmy the Great retreats into allegories, fairytales and myths to find her voice. ‘Cassandra’, ‘Exit Night’ and ‘A Woman, Woman, A Century of Sleep’ are all explicitly populated more by ‘characters’ than by real people, but the feelings expressed through their eyes seem anything but artificial.

A more direct, and coincidentally more old-school Emmy, appears on ‘Paper Forests’, one of the standouts. It begins like a remnant of the First Love sessions, all rapid-fire word play and strummed guitar but soon unravels into something more contemplative. There is plenty more to discover and fans of Emmy’s wonderfully percussive glottal stops will not be disappointed but the time for reading is over and the time for listening is overdue.

Words: Rory Dollard

For Folk's Sake » Emmy The Great

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