I've kinda written about this record before, but in the context of another record. The short version is that I heard The Grey Ship and California played over the hifi in a record shop, thought they were cool, Googled the lyrics and read up about EMA and her old band Gowns. I stumbled across a Gowns record in the next shop I went into and figured it was too much of a coincidence to not buy it. For a couple of years afterwards I kept thinking that I should pick up the EMA record and last year I finally did. I bought this copy at the Independent Label Market in Spitalfields after a fairly sweaty and unexciting trip - in 2013 I bought so many great records there, but I was underwhelmed by the 2014 event. Of my few purchases, Past Life Martyred Saints was quite the highlight.
The Grey Ship is one of those excellent album openers that stands out and sets the listener up for what's about to happen; it's slow and brooding but explodes into one of the highlights. In length and power it could easily dwarf the rest of the album but there are plenty of other songs that meet its standards. California, one of the albums most well-known tracks, follows on in great style and grabs your attention from the get-go. My other favourite is Marked, a song that also made it onto Gowns' Latitudes session EP. The live version has a certain rawness that is missing here but both versions are excellent and almost tell different stories in their styles - Erika's voice is so smooth here that it sounds like a love song even though it most definitely is not. Butterfly Knife and Red Star are great too, although close the album too soon for my liking - I never feel like I've been listening to it for long enough before it's over.
It's hard to describe EMA's music (so I'll try not to), but there are so many influences from starkly different musical styles that all come together so well. You wouldn't think that an album that can draw comparisons to folk, noise and industrial could sound so great. Maybe it's because I quite enjoy all those genres that I enjoy this album so much. It ended up in pretty heavy rotation in the second half of 2014 and I suspect that'll continue into 2015.
Tracks: 9
Cost: £12 new
Bought: Independent Label Market
When: 12/07/14
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
