Following her alluring 2020 debut LP, Let’s Talk About the Weather, and last year’s ethereal extended play, When the Space Between Was so Much Less, Bristol based songwriter and producer Emily Magpie steps into the water for her deeply personal new EP, She. Filled with soothing alt-pop melodies shimmering on the surface, it offers a poignant reflection on her own experience being a woman,“which is beautiful and messy!”
Opening with ‘She Said’, Emily, in celebration of her best friends, sings in lush vocal harmony with the most important women in her life; the subtle elegance of sun-drenched guitar evoking summer warmth and better days. Below the surface of the water, haunting lyrical hypnosis from ‘Down in the Deep‘ submerges the listener in raw emotion – a delicate, yet complex, dream-pop soundscape of synth, guitar, and piano, elevating Emily’s mesmerising multi-layered vocals. “My salt bathing lungs / The lines on their tongues / Is that what you sold to me? / Half spun cigarettes / Can’t work with less / The wheel still spins the same.”
Imagining herself “drifting around the bottom of the sea,” Emily explores the feminine – “which exists outside of gender” – encapsulating the light and dark. Closing with ‘Blistered Tongue’, Emily finds herself beyond the aphotic zone; ghostly reflections shimmering to the percussive groove and brooding synth-driven melody. Don’t be afraid! Through atmospheric arrangement, Emily embraces both the sparkling beauty and the melancholic unknown of the feminine, as Kieran Ball and Max Harrison provide additional instrumentation, swirling in Emily Magpie’s effervescent electronic mix. “Feminine energy is badass and there’s a massive history of it being suppressed which it’s important to challenge by us being heard.”
She, the new EP from Emily Magpie, is out now via Def Pressé. Buy on bandcamp now.
Ken Wynne
@Ken_Wynne
Photo Credit: Hannah Lisa
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