EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints

Ex-Gowns, polarizing opinions about "California" on thesinglesjukebox and best new music on pitchfork which ought to get her some attention. What say you ILM?

http://www.thesinglesjukebox.com/?p=3335
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15386-past-life-martyred-saints/

loltroversy

I like the song/album alright, but I'm not crazy about it.

Fuck ILM, you made me boring.

In all seriousness though I really like what she's doing. Gut-level it reminds me of discovering Chan Marshall or Xiu Xiu for the first time... musically I guess Sonic Youth is the closest reference.

I think I might be going to some sort of quarter-life crisis so her music is hitting somewhat close to home right now.

Funny you bring up the "gut-level" thing (even though that wasn't what you were getting at). There doesn't seem to be much about the album that humanizes EMA at all. It's kind of impenetrable and distant in a way that seems like too much work if I really wanted to crack it. She's not writing/singing/performing from a gut-level imo—it's just a hollow activity.

I like 'California' the least. Elsewhere it reminds me a bit of Warpaint and one song apes Elliott Smith.

Overall good impression but not something you'd want to listen to while walking around town...much more of a late-night record.

I like the intimacy and in a lot of ways it reminds me of what's going on here with the Denver music scene. But yeah, it's sort impenetrable in a weird way and lots of it feels like I should know some back story about her previous band/herself before giving this another listen. I don't dig her aesthetic too much... there's a huge amount of fuzz that feels incredibly modern and yet utterly pointless.

I think the record being distant and impenetrable is sort of the point. While many songs in here could benefit from a dose of raw emotion, the mood and idea behind the record is about feeling hopelessly static. Out of place. In limbo. I understand why this disengaged stance wouldn't really invite anyone to hear it - "if she doesn't care, why should we?" - but if you're coming from the place as her or even feel remotely estranged it's an interesting perspective to hear.

Saw EMA last week supporting Scout Niblett and thought she was far superior to the main act. The Grey Ship easily one of my favourite tracks of the year so I really hope she does well out of this.

There was apparently a five star review in last week's sunday times (uk). Anyone able to access it from behind the paywall?

I really like this album, better songs than Warpaint certainly, but good god she's a clunky lyricist.

Utterly predictably, I like this just fine.

I don't find her inpenetrable or distant or anything, I like the subtle emotional tones of her voice. She's not exactly wearing her heart on her sleeve, but that doesn't mean it's not there. Restrained, introverted. If you're not willing to "put in the work" to appreciate that subtlety, then it's probably just as well. She's not the chick sitting at the front of the bar in a low-cut dress and flashing smiles at everyone, she's the chick sitting at the back of the bar hiding behind her hair in a shapeless t-shirt, but you can tell just by looking at her, that she's going to have the more interesting stories.

I am worrying, though, that I'm listening to a lot of new stuff today and I'm liking almost all of it. Which either means I'm getting more reasonable and less discerning in my musical taste - or I'm getting bad at spotting in advance things that are gonna annoy me so badly I really shouldn't listen to them.

California is easily the worst song on the record, though. Initial listen, it's all about the slow builds like The Grey Ship and Red Star.

Really sick of the kind of comments that are "OMG a woman's vocals, presence etc. are not as easily accessible as, say Katy Perry = TEH FEMININE MYSTIQUE!!!" that's just kinda sub-Klondike "help! a woman is talking, I must disengage!" BS imo. But whatever. That's more about the two reviews posted at the top of the thread than anyone on this thread.

While I like this a lot sonically I actually think she's a bit blunt with the introversion, which works against her.

I'm kinda boggling that it could be considered inpenetrable at all really.

i don't want to love "california" as much as i do.

the rest of the album is fairly solid but i'm not really blown away or anything. it seemed stronger toward the beginning. might give it another listen.

I'm kinda boggling that it could be considered inpenetrable at all really.

Yeah, I completely agree. I found Red State really difficult but this is such an open and honest album. Adore it.

I too do not understand the hype. Well crafted mostly yes but a bit soulless. And why do people like California? Is it the lyrics? The song is a bit one note to me.

Not just the lyrics but the delivery, too. I really like that song.

Yeah, forgive me for that post upthread... trying to remember what I meant by "intimate yet impenetrable" and mostly coming to the conclusion that this is something else I've posted post-bong rip and intermediating between ilx/reddit/jewel staite's twitter.

Listened to this 3 times and am really unsure what to think. The songs are just okay... I've reread that Pitchfork review twice now and seemingly still can't figure what it is that warrants this to attain a BNM, and not just simply a decent rating.

presumably they did a quick show of hands for 'so do a bunch of us dig this record' and it turned out a bunch of them dug the record

alternatively, cthulhu

kelpolaris it seems you spend a lot of time mystified by pitchfork

I think if you make the sonic/aesthetic choices that she has you probably WANT people to think you're a bit on the inpenetrable side but the lyrics are so obvious and upfront they undercut that.

People bitch about indie rock all the time but I'd listen to a lot more of it if it sounded like this. I think it helps that the lyrics are casually brilliant and not just some afterthought.

This girl and Gowns are like JT Leroy to me.

^^
please elaborate

Exploitation of one's own backstory + extreme catharsis w/out any payoff, no comedy, no anger, no epiphany.

I think if you make the sonic/aesthetic choices that she has you probably WANT people to think you're a bit on the inpenetrable side but the lyrics are so obvious and upfront they undercut that.

this is an interesting read, maybe plays into owen p's JTL comparison? (which, ok, frankly i don't get. read sarah way back when and found it full of comedy and epiphany, no anger.) when it's working, i like california's combination of arty indifference and poetic directness. just as often, though, it doesn't work and feels simply "arty" to me - smart & well-appointed, but a bit empty. wish i found the music more engaging.

haven't heard the album though, and i'm interested enough to plan on it.

before or after the rapture?

after, of course

that's not fair. that's not fair at all. there was time now. there was, was all the time i needed...

[just noticed sysiphus - cool!]

except with the letters reversed

Exploitation of one's own backstory + extreme catharsis w/out any payoff, no comedy, no anger, no epiphany.

I couldn't disagree with this more tbh. I mean, I don't think it's funny but anger and epiphanies seem to be the backbone of it for me.

generally not what one thinks of when one thinks of j t leroy these days, i thought 0w3n was suggesting she was actually whitehouse and EMA was a fictional creation

i like this record! i think it could be seen as blank or po-faced in some way but i'm not sure it is. i don't know. i wonder if there is a dividing line between ppl who think "i've bled all my blood out / these red pants don't show that" is clunky and those who think it is funny

that's like my favorite lyric on the record

it's both clunky and (a little) funny. doesn't strike me as great.

i thought 0w3n was suggesting she was actually whitehouse and EMA was a fictional creation

yeah, but that's only a small part of "one's own backstory + extreme catharsis w/out any payoff, no comedy, no anger, no epiphany." the whole description just throws me, though erika = terminator makes sense.

she is quite tall.

heavily reinforced

She'll be back.

Sorry. Have SB'd self.

guys - she's not the terminator - i've met her parents. they were pretty cool.

I like the record and I don't really want to get into my reservations. I'm chuffed that people are going to bat for this.

Me too, and they really are: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/artist-to-watch-ema-s-spellbinding-noise-folk-confessionals-20110517

i don't want to be THAT GUY, but imo this record is complete dogshit and that it has so much critical acclaim is utterly baffling. I don't see how even the most generous music fan could rate this as any higher than "Deeply Average", and I guess there must be some sort of conspiracy to make it popular.. yeah

This is not good though, surely?

haha yeah its terrible we were all just saying it was good to prank u lol

you have to admit we had you going for a minute or so there bro... lol.

maybe u just like shit music lol

What's so bad apart it apart from it being hyped, merked?

It's growing on me after me initially only enjoying 'California'... sounds more Gowns-y with each listen.

I like this record. I love the song pitchfork had up awhile back, The Grey Ship.

However, after watching a clip of her performing at south by southwest, it's clear she she's taken a thing or two from the Billy Squier school of arena rock arm movement

I don't think it's terrible, but it's just really feels quintessentially mediocre to me. I'm not impressed with the production, the vocals are heavily indebted to an array of notable names/whatever suits EMA's voice; and I'm having a hard time figuring out what exactly is so cathartic about this album as a listener, and not the artist.

But is it just me or are a lot of new names popping up in this thread?

*not from the POV of the artist. "i wish he'd leave a mark..." is not nearly as effecting upon me as I is I assume for her to sing. I'm not lamenting the fact that I can't relate, or that I wish all music would be more associable. But that this album is being acclaimed for being a representation of an artist finally getting something off their chest.... I mean, a lot of music does that. The majority of it, actually.

the fact that it's hyped means nothing. That's just the vessel that pushed me towards it. But i really don't see what people are getting from it.. weak lyrics, unpleasant/emotion-free vocal performance, dull sonics, no.. songs. I'll admit it's one of the rare times i've popped out of my "alternative music"-free bunker and actually given a moment of time to the zeitgeist act, but this is the sort of thing that'll make me stack up another layer of bricks.

i don't want to dislike indie rock, but if this is the best they can do.. like, eurgh

yeah, like how some people poke their heads up and listen to one new rap album every 5 years or so. good strategy, imo.

You've lost me. Do you think this record is good or not? Does it matter that I don't really listen to this genre? So I can't judge it unless i've seen the context in which it's grown. That sounds like a whole bunch of bollocks to me

I have heard other "alternative" records in my life, btw

which ones?

Jagged Little Pill
Carry on Up The Charts

some others

er, you're kidding with those, yes?

no, he's right! credentials is overrated.

and gah, i said the dumbest shit upthread. forgive me. this is great, gorgeous song after song, album of the year, etc. every track from "grey ship" through "marked", beautiful in at least 3 ways. anteroom maybe = elliott bedhead smith, but shit, ANTEROOM!

said he was a fag
but you know he was a pretty man
don't you know they all look
pretty to me?

The more I listen to this, the more I like it, it kind of sucks me in with repeated listenings.

(funny because I wasn't that fond of Gowns, I bought it because it was getting so much love in the Plan B office but it didn't leave a lasting impression on me.)

But I think what I like about it is the ... blankness. That there isn't the expected "payoff, comedy, anger, epiphany" - there is this blankness which can be as much of a reaction to trauma as those other responses. And perhaps it's a bit voyeuristic to expect, as a listener, that you are entitled to payoff, comedy, anger, epiphany, whatever, rather than this fierce beauty and emotional blankness that she's chosen to portray - picture of her in a homemade "emptiness" t-shirt makes me think that blankness is an aesthetic choice as well as emotional reaction.

That there isn't the expected "payoff, comedy, anger, epiphany" - there is this blankness... And perhaps it's a bit voyeuristic to expect, as a listener, that you are entitled to payoff, comedy, anger, epiphany, whatever, rather than this fierce beauty and emotional blankness that she's chosen to portray

OTM, though i'd say that the blankness is primarily an aesthetic choice - or rather that, as a listener at a listener's remove, i have to treat it as such.

I like this record fine but I'm a bit surprised by the critical rapture (OK not surprised in churnalism buzz-band hype-cycle land) as it reminds me a lot of stuff like Edith Frost and Cynthia Dall. Guess that dates me, eh?

And Anteroom sounds to my ears like Pod-era Breeders.

love pod-era breeders! those are the best breeders.

don't think that anteroom is that similar, though. doesn't push the delicate fragility angle so hard, smudgier.

Well, it's all obviously an aesthetic choice in the same way that any art is an aesthetic choice. I don't know if the "trauma" (for lack of a better word, but the songs seem to be written from the point of view of people burned by drugs or burned by the fake promises of Californian libertarianism or small town small mindedness or just burned by love or its absence or just brutalised) is in her life or just in the situations depicted in the songs as characters, because I'm just a listener. But I'm aware that that blankness *is* a valid reaction or aesthetic choice to the situations described in the songs, rather than a failure to write the big epiphanic pay-off that some people seem to want.

But jeez ILX, complain if critics dislike something, complain if critics like it. Can't win, can you.

haha - one of my fondest memories of Erika is her t-shirt that said "You Can't Win"

I like this record a lot. Just bought it on amazon.

I'm a bit surprised by the critical rapture ... as it reminds me a lot of stuff like Edith Frost and Cynthia Dall.

― byebyepride, Wednesday, May 18, 2011 1:09 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

it reminds you of horrible stuff by edith frost and cynthia dall? are you saying that EMA is similar to bad things, or that the similarity is objectionable in itself? anyway, i get maybe cynthia as a reference point (blurry drones), but not edith - not that i'm terribly familiar with either.

PLMS sometimes reminds me of magik markers circa boss, but i hardly see that as a bad thing.

I'm saying I just bought it on amazon! Sheesh some people

o shit, eric's trip. that's what "anteroom" sounds like.

I have nothing against the similarity - which may not be anywhere other than my ears - and I've been enjoying the record, as I said. Just feeling old.

this is quite nice but it does baffle me that this gets so much attention when something like the tamaryn album was entirely ignored

This music is very epiphanic, in the strictest sense of the word... unless it means something totally different in pop music that I'm not aware of, like bombastic, emotiveness or something. I mean, it's purely subjective but I'd say this album's full of little moments of dawning realisation. A blankness of delivery isn't mutually exclusive to this. Also, a lot of these songs aren't necessarily about her right? Butterfly Knife is about some goth murder in LA I think, for example...

I honestly don't know what world I'm living in where this album is being labelled overrated, overhyped, etc. but I kinda like living there. Like, EMA is not even anywhere near Animal Collective's level of popularity, but this thread suggests that there is enough of a conversation going on somewhere to already produce something like a backlash. I'm honestly kind of baffled by it all.

this is quite nice but it does baffle me that this gets so much attention when something like the tamaryn album was entirely ignored

― imagine arse (electricsound), Wednesday, May 18, 2011 4:40 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

kind of hate these backlashy responses, no matter who the artist. tamaryn and EMA have very little in common, really.

get over it? "backlashy response" wtf are you even talking about? i like the record, it reminded me of tamaryn, end of story, why am i even explaining myself to you?

good question

This music is very epiphanic, in the strictest sense of the word... unless it means something totally different in pop music that I'm not aware of, like bombastic, emotiveness or something.

get you, but PLMS does tend to play its epiphanies pretty close to the chest, raymond carver-like. in pop terms, i guess that reads as anti-epiphanic.

I honestly don't know what world I'm living in where this album is being labelled overrated, overhyped, etc. but I kinda like living there. Like, EMA is not even anywhere near Animal Collective's level of popularity, but this thread suggests that there is enough of a conversation going on somewhere to already produce something like a backlash. I'm honestly kind of baffled by it all.

― jer.fairall, Wednesday, May 18, 2011 8:38 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

What is going on here? Why is Animal Collective being pulled into this? Why are the words "indie" and "alternative" being thrown around so loosely, as if these were things we've just encountered for the first time? If you're going to compare EMA and AC (for sole reason of being reviewed by Pitchfork), you should realize this is EMA's debut album and Merriweather Post Pavillion (that "overyhped, overrated" album most knowingly or unknowingly are referring to) was the 8th by the group. Also, they are, um, entirely different species of hype here. I won't even address how the comparison is like pitting Leonard Cohen against My Bloody Valentine.

dude, dont even begin to address it

tellem

you're going to compare EMA and AC (for sole reason of being reviewed by Pitchfork), you should realize this is EMA's debut album and Merriweather Post Pavillion (that "overyhped, overrated" album most knowingly or unknowingly are referring to) was the 8th by the group.

Exactly. AC were the recipients of a lot of online hype and fawning discussion, MCC topped the P&J poll, and yet EMA has already, a week and a day after her album was released, being treated, at least in this circle, as something "popular" enough to warrant backlash. Wasn't comparing anything to anything else; was just surprised that this discussion was already happening.

Ok, I'm getting you now. But mind you, this is ILM. She only has about 64k scrobbles on last.fm, which is abysmal. Not that I think it warrants comparison again, but AC has about over 46 million scrobbles. ~time will tell~

It's okay. I can't get excited by it.

I can't even write a decent sentence about it. I think maybe I've heard it all before? It's kind of trope-laden.

trope-laden

'Breakfast' sounds similar to Smashing Pumpkins' 'Mayonaise' to me.

osama trope-laden

as something "popular" enough to warrant backlash

it's received several fawning reviews already from "big" reviewers, surely that's enough justification to instigate a backlash? It doesn't really matter what the public think, or how long it's been out (old enough to be praised, old enough to be attacked), the fact that journos have latched onto it is enough.

I'm just puzzled as to why this has been picked out from the sea of noisy miserable songwriters and put to the forefront, because i see nothing remarkable there

gonna stop talking about it now. Not going to listen to it again, and from the looks of things it's been bypassed by most of the internet. Shouldn't trouble me again

thing is, you're basically just saying that you don't like it, which is fine. you're entitled to your tastes.

but you're bolstering the apparent import of your simple distaste by means of dull hyperbole ("this record is complete dogshit"), suggestions that there's something suspect about the praise the album has received ("there must be some sort of conspiracy to make it popular"), and nonsensical dismissals of the genre you believe it inhabits ("i don't want to dislike indie rock, but if this is the best they can do"). none of which amounts to a meaningful critique of what the album is or isn't doing. you're simply restating the obvious fact that merked don't like the EMA record. which again is cool, but hardly requires the fancy footwork.

But don't you see? Of course there's a conspiracy. Almost certainly involving the CIA, the IMF and the reviews desk of the NME. A bunch of critics all liking a record that some random poster doesn't really like? It's the only reasonable explanation!

um, excuse me, random poster?

i was heavily sedated when i wrote all that so you might want to take it with a pinch of salt. But i've already expressed up there what the record is and specifically what it isn't doing. I'm a simple man, and i see it thusly: are any of the parts worthy of note? Lyrically, song wise, sonically, in terms of personality or mystique or emotion.. no. Is it more than the sum of its parts? No.

I can see why most things are picked up by your mainstream-ish media outlets. I can see the appeal of an Animal Collective, or an Odd Future. But i can't see what appeals about this. It's not just a case of not liking it, it's that i don't get what makes it stand out. I suppose it must have affected some people, and more power to them. But not I

*cacophanous applause*

And Anteroom sounds to my ears like Pod-era Breeders.

Yes! It's a great song. The whole album evokes a certain 90s-ness (in a good way) for me, if that makes any sense. In any case, I liked the album, and I think the critical praise it's getting is deserved.

i was heavily sedated when i wrote all that so you might want to take it with a pinch of salt

Swallow your own poison, kid.

so why is 'coda' sequenced before a song it is a 'coda' to

okay, so i've been thinking about the objections raised in this thread and what i like about PLMS:

"grey ship" opens the album in a placeless void, a low-fidelity recording of rudimentary guitar strumming and disaffected vocals. though merrill's voice maneuvers a bit within the simple chord progression, the song is more drone than melody, woozy organ washes only enhancing the sense of stasis when they arrive. the lyrics sketch vaguely poetic circles around death in the form a grey "ship you can't see." this is a familiar sound and subject, not too far removed from cat power's early recordings. though the result is quite evocative, imo, i can see why some might be tempted to dismiss EMA's approach here as mere 90s nostalgia, done better, done before.

a few minutes in, however, the lo-fi haze reveals itself not as working method but as coloration, parting dramatically to make room for a descending electric guitar figure and a massive, buzzing synth tone that rises like thick, black fog, both elements much more smoothly recorded than the introductory verses. layers of wordless vocals complete the transition, and suddenly we're moving fast, over, a tripping rhythm, through a much darker place. the lyrics, when they re-emerge, describe "a choir, a symphony," both literally and figuratively. in and with this choir, merrill invokes a sisterhood of death: mother, sister, friend, "spinster" aunt and a self with "mouth full of glass," all apparently lost to the world. the vague specter we first encountered as a grey ship is now personalized as family, as history, even as a state of being.

the song of this mortal chorus grows louder and louder, backed at its climax by slashing guitars and a stuttering, headbanging beat, waves in storm, before breaking on total silence. from here the calmly resigned voice we remember from those "placeless" introductory verses returns to announce location: "great grandmother lived on a prarie," it whispers, where "nothing and nothing and nothing." the song's closing line, "i got the same feelin inside of me," finally locates this emptiness as an intimation of death the narrator carries within, wherever she might go.

i love this, the whole progression from a plain of cryptic absence, down through a darkly gleaming underworld and back to the shores of a nothing that no longer seems so empty, now flutters with ghosts. it's beautiful in itself, it makes perfect, clear sense of the album's vocal and musical decisions, and it carries enormous thematic weight. more than anything else, it's just plain beautiful, building a fascinating odyssey out of a few simple tools. i've listened to this song many, many times over the past week, and to my mind, it exists in no shadow save its own.

bought the LP yesterday, basically as a tithe for enjoying the music so much. sounds great on vinyl, but god, the packaging/design is atrocious.

Merrill's voice? I'm now picturing some odd mashup between EMA and tUnE-yArDs.

Which might actually be amazing if EMA sang & Merrill looped, so thanks for putting that unattainable musical image in my head.

duh, wrote that when i first woke up, lol. jesus christ. was feeling all proud of myself, too.

I MEAN ERIKA! kill me now.

signs of aging number eleventy-thousand

Ha ha, apart from that, I was really liking your review...

(for a minute I thought I'd missed something)

It's okay. I can't get excited by it.

― Brooker T Buckingham, Thursday, May 19, 2011 6:32 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I can't even write a decent sentence about it. I think maybe I've heard it all before? It's kind of trope-laden.

― Brooker T Buckingham, Thursday, May 19, 2011 6:36 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

these are the posts in this thread i most agree with. it's okay, it's just...there. she does a good job of painting her world but she doesn't really pull me into it.

Hah, I had money on you being a frothing-mouth hater.

Nah, this has enough of early 90s not-quite-riot-grrrl-but-strong-female-grunger that it would hit some of his buttons.

The funny thing is, this thread has over 100 posts, mostly of people going "it's a decent enough album, but why the hype?" but then something like the Barbara Panther thread has, like 4 people all going "this is great!" and only a dozen posts.

So the real question isn't so much "why is this artist so popular?" but "why is this thread so popular?" and the answer to that is more easily answered.

It's not like it's getting Animal Collective-level hype or anything. Unless "positive reviews" equal hype by definition.

If you took out all the "why the hype?" posts this thread would have like four people going "this is great!" as well.

haha kate i checked this out purely because i saw you liked it!

barbara panther is also on my list too.

Nah, this has enough of early 90s not-quite-riot-grrrl-but-strong-female-grunger that it would hit some of his buttons.

The funny thing is, this thread has over 100 posts, mostly of people going "it's a decent enough album, but why the hype?" but then something like the Barbara Panther thread has, like 4 people all going "this is great!" and only a dozen posts.

So the real question isn't so much "why is this artist so popular?" but "why is this thread so popular?" and the answer to that is more easily answered.

― Karen D. Tregaskin, Thursday, 26 May 2011 12:28 (56 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's not like it's getting Animal Collective-level hype or anything. Unless "positive reviews" equal hype by definition.

If you took out all the "why the hype?" posts this thread would have like four people going "this is great!" as well.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 26 May 2011 12:32 (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

i don't know -- i think people are getting allergic to expressing enthusiasm on here, to some degree; people are keener to exhibit themselves as being too smart to like something than they are to admit liking it

If you took out all the "why the hype?" posts this thread would have like four people going "this is great!" as well.

That is exactly my point.

Yet the activity on this thread makes the artist look more "ILM-approved" (whatever that means). Just wondering why some *threads* expand and others don't, I suppose.

EMA's a complex listen, that's all.

enh, it's not like people are actually trying to unpack it

Contenderizer was doing a pretty good job upthread

Jeez - Lex, Matt and Owen, just go and listen to a BP YouTube already. If it's too scando-quirky for you, you can come back and smack me in the eye with The Knife's winter mittens or something.

I like EMA because it reminds me a lot of that kind of dense, dark proto-grunge a la Kim Deal and Kim Gordon and early Hole that I still have a lot of love for. And lots of noisy songwriters get a lot of props for reviving the dense grunge wall o sound thing, but they don't have that slightly aggressive, slightly bored, slightly unhinged very intense femme thing which does it for me. EMA crosses the line from the more common dark and spooky (Warpaint) to dark and actually a little bit scary, but in a way that excites me.

It's not the best record in the world, ever, no, but it does a thing I happen to like, rather well. Damning with faint praise, eh?

What is BP?
Karen, I'm reading this thread because I like this record a little and I want to like it more

the comment about the "90s-ness" of this album is totally OTM

Barbara Panther?

(Nothing like EMA at all, Rwandan electronic eurodisco lady from Brussells via Berlin, supposedly slightly Bjorkish of vocal tone and general artiness)

Public service stanning over, now back to your EMA thread already in progress.

EMA album is kinda Kim Gordon meets Mogwai...

So yeah, totally 90s.

slightly aggressive, slightly bored, slightly unhinged very intense femme thing which does it for me. EMA crosses the line from the more common dark and spooky (Warpaint) to dark and actually a little bit scary, but in a way that excites me.

karen OTM here, and so's everyone else in noticing that the basic sound and attitude have their roots in the 90s. imo, we've got the requisite 20 years distance on that era, so a revive seems appropriate.

after spending some time with this record, especially given that i'm listening to the vinyl, i want to break it in half. the first side consists of only four songs, delivered in just under 20 minutes: "grey ship", "california", "anteroom" and "milkman". it works beautifully, each of the songs rooted, yes, in the not-quite-punk girl rock of the early-to-mid 90s: kim gordon, the breeders, cat power, bardo pond, etc. a combination of sensual languor and suppressed violence, served cool. each song, however, brings something distinctive (if not quite "new") to the table, configuring a familiar set of influences in novel & exciting ways.

went over "grey ship" above, and i love the way it contrasts with "california", the first song's haunted emptiness suddenly switched out for an anesthetized torch drone locked in on gritty detail, on names and places, with a simple, strong vocal melody to carry it all along. the ghosts don't disappear here, but we're no longer in their country - we're in the place to which they've followed, stuck somewhere between this world and the next. by the song's end, we've abandoned the vision of california, find ourselves stranded again on the gray shores of death ("i saw grandma carrying the gun / the gun the gun the gun"). especially love the use of shoegaze elements to create something that can't be easily summarized as pretty, psychedelic or crushing.

love, too, the contrast between the dark, smudgy wooze of those first two songs and the bright, sad elliott smith pop of "anteroom", they way it briefly lift us not out of darkness, but out of the dark, haunted body, into the air above. a song about ghosts and the failure of love, struggling to escape all ghosts and failure. it's an easy and obvious move, perhaps, but it works exceptionally well, maintaining the album's nocturnal flow while allowing in a smear of melodic light.

side 1 ends with "milkman", hardly the album's strongest track, but at least it perks things up a bit, trading "anteroom"'s deathly glow for beats, chaos and unsuppressed violence, erika's voice growing spikes, tearing at resignation's comfortable cocoon. it's a song about sex and distrust, perhaps betrayal, given an obliquely threatening twist in the form of a "milkman" who waits on the lawn, sees and knows all, an omen of strange, stilted decency. like all of EMA's songs, it carries a snarling, erotic tension, but here for the first time that tension is addressed.

and that's the first side. the second's pretty great, too, with "marked" and "breakfast" standing out. depending on my mood, PLMS can start to drag a bit during the longish last two songs, but it's solid throughout. each track brings its own ideas to the table, and no one precisely duplicates the style of another. i admit that it's not an album of great melodic or sonic innovation, and i suppose that's why some object to the small acclaim it's attracted. it gets by, instead, on personality and vibe, like old horror movies, on cultivating and sustaining an atmosphere. on that level, it succeeds completely. anyway, why should nostalgia be an objectionable quality in a record that's so obsessed with the past?

that came out long

No, that was pretty spot-on.

New video for Marked:

http://pitchfork.com/tv/musicvideos/1415-marked/

Hard to work out how I feel about it but I wonder if that isn't the idea?

really don't like get this. album does nothing for me and video is cringe.

Really? I love the album. Can't watch the vid as am at work.

i wasn't nuts about her debut, but she's somebody i think i'd check out in the future to see if her "very now" schtick translates. her whole aesthetic of buzz of 90s guitarplay will assuredly be worn out come a couple years, hopefully epitomized by a fatal stage accident involving Yuck

I wrote up a brief review of the album when it was new for a publication that decided not to publish it for whatever (possibly apparent) reason. So it doesn't go to waste, here it is:

“I wish that every time he touched me left a mark,” Erika M. Anderson sings on one of many brutally harrowing moments on the ex-Gowns singer’s solo debut Past Life Martyred Saints. Accordingly, this is an album fixated on laying bare the scars of experience, physical or otherwise. “Butterfly Knife” remembers a high school acquaintance’s ritual of self-inflicted wounds. “California” finds the author cursing the failure of her runaway destination to deliver on implicit promises of free love and character building all while recalling the Old Testament fury that bruised her small town upbringing. Less explicitly, yet somehow more frightening for it, “Milkman” and “Breakfast” evoke the inexplicable horrors of childhood, once through seething tantrum and again through a sinister nursery rhyme mutter.

Anderson’s performances ensure that you feel her pain. When she’s quiet, its unbearably intimate and tactile, with each sweep over an acoustic guitar string registering as sharp and threatening as a knife blade held to your throat. When she’s loud, its blurry and discordant, the sound of barely-clung-to sanity. Yet her fierce conviction in her art makes for a singularly exhilarating and even faith restoring listen, if not exactly a feel-good one.

Mmm she reminds me of a much less insecure Chan Marshall on that marked video. That particular song brings the cat power reference but it seems her overall look for the video is spot on... is she willfully trying to mimic her?

yes

in that she is simultaneously 'making music' and 'being a woman'

Unlike Baby Dee.

she forgot to mimic the writing good songs and having an interesting voice bit though

it just sorta infuriates me when reviews triumph an artist for "echoing" a more well-known act, is all. that EMA evokes kim gordon isn't something i naturally think of as a prize-worthy positive. my same sentiments apply to "Girls" entire existence... it's this attitude that we've reached "the end" of music, and our only choice is to fall-back and reinvent the wheel by constantly adopting past styles thanks to "the wealth of information: the internet!". i mean, maybe it was inevitable at some point but part of the reason i've always fawned over the 90s is that it's always felt like the last progressive decade in music.

woah tangent

how do you really feel?

i still think 'california' is a total jam

I liked that tangent.

Yes. Rant away.

I liked this act for awhile but then I made the critical error of downloading the 16 minute b-side to The Grey Ship. Barf out people!!!

^^

Still haven't heard that, but it'd take a lot to undo this album for me. Plus, eh, it's a b-side.

Also, her Daytrotter session, including a new regular-length song.

it just sorta infuriates me when reviews triumph an artist for "echoing" a more well-known act, is all. that EMA evokes kim gordon isn't something i naturally think of as a prize-worthy positive. my same sentiments apply to "Girls" entire existence... it's this attitude that we've reached "the end" of music, and our only choice is to fall-back and reinvent the wheel by constantly adopting past styles thanks to "the wealth of information: the internet!". i mean, maybe it was inevitable at some point but part of the reason i've always fawned over the 90s is that it's always felt like the last progressive decade in music.

woah tangent

― Hullo, I'm Jon Moss (kelpolaris)

This sort of 'my generation had it better' point of view feels to me like missing the big picture. Art has been improving and imitating itself since birth, this has nothing to do with the internet.

Also the 90s in style was easier to pin down... way more homogenic and derivative than the ones from past decade.

I'm already sick of 90s fetishism.

Though, to be fair, I spent much of the 90s fetishizing the 80s.

this album is good but its a bit, heavy? like everything is these cavernous spaces & collisions

There's more to this than 90's revisionism. Take away the voice and you've got something equating a rougher-edged Fennesz. The vocal work is great though - interesting harmonic measures going on here. I like it a lot- a hazy, heavy atmosphere I can sink into

Funny you bring the Fennesz reference... in the singlesjukebox I mentioned California sounded like some sort of lost Sonic Youth/Fennesz single split collaboration. It might be the only song on the record which reminds me of Fennesz tho...

I think the real problem with this record is it has dissociative identity disorder.

NP: "California"

This doesn't sound like Fennesz at all. Does sound like Sonic Youth a bit, more accurately that Kim Gordon/Ikue Mori/DJ Olive SYR but with the delivery/cadence of Michael Stipe on "Strange Currencies." Really glad I listened to this tho.

i don't think the 'echoing' / 'cavernous' qualities of it are really anything that needs to be traced back to specific influences so much as 'experimenting with recording on your laptop and turning that reverb plugin all the way up' or 'playing around with some really boss guitar pedals but not playing so much guitar'

new live recording out now http://soundcloud.com/incubate/sets/ema-incubate-2011/

just saw her live. didn't find it particularly interesting, and also didn't care for the hushed reverence of the crowd

A few months old, but a new one off single. Heart wrenching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4X6mU2QcxY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WItFIhNzAww

Gotta say, as someone who couldn't have possibly loved her last album more, this new single is kind of a disappointment. Nothing really going on there.

Man, WTF is this? Hard to believe this is the same person who made Red State and PLMS. Just terrible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvyUN0P6yvk

hahaha wtf

Into it!

dig it. fun & funny, though slight. makes sense, too, doubling down on 90s indie (90s everything by the look of it).

http://www.internetarchaeology.org/img/Moving/Recreation/07.gif

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9cd48e9a89876c2b37488e88bc6bc8a4/tumblr_n1ikrphI9h1todheko1_400.gif

yes

that's SOOOOOOO bad

Gaudy video aside, I don't get what's so objectionable about this. It's breezy, but in a good way, and the lyrics are every bit as loaded/funny as anything on PLMS. It's not a big leap or anything; it's just EMA's version of a summer jam.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/1b32d4bdaec2d7b7bc1c36117df76480/tumblr_n1ikrphI9h1todheko2_400.gif

HOW DO YOU POST STUFF LIKE THAT?

kind of like it...

I stopped grimacing in horror about a minute in and actually started enjoying the song little, but that doesn't change the fact that a flippant 90s pastiche is not what I want from the author of Past Life Martyred Saints.

nah, this is rad. ridiculous, but that can be a good look, imo. not sure i want a whole album of royal trux by way of mary lou lord (or L7 or w/e), but i like the song more every time i hear it.

Maybe this will be some sort of Liz Phair trajectory

Like it or not, I can't see how this isn't a leap from PLMS. What songs there sound like this one or resemble it thematically? Getting from Butterfly Knife/Marked to So Blonde/Satellites, that's a huge change of direction. Feels like she's closed herself off from the world.

I like this. The animation reminds me of MC Skat Cat.

Just listened to both of these for the first time and I like them both a bunch and how different they are

I'm sorry, but in what way was Past Life Martyred Saints *not* a 90s retro revival record? Hasn't there been a ton of discussion about that upthead?

I honestly have to worry how much the (frankly terrible) video is affecting people's impressions of this song. I watched for about 20 seconds, thought "this is awful" then got up and did made up a cup of tea, and noticed that the song seemed about 10x better when I wasn't looking at the visuals.

Granted, it would take a pretty terrible video to taint a track that badly, but, um, it is a pretty terrible video.

i like the video! it's funny, not like SUPER funny, but funny enough. easily amused, i guess...

and yeah, PLMS was hella retro to begin with

The difference, if it really needs to be pointed out, is that PLMS was the 90s of Rid of Me/Live Through This -type confessionals, whereas this seems to be taking cues from, I dunno, Third Eye Blind or something.

http://pitchfork.com/features/update/9338-ema/

The difference, if it really needs to be pointed out, is that PLMS was the 90s of Rid of Me/Live Through This -type confessionals, whereas this seems to be taking cues from, I dunno, Third Eye Blind or something.

lol this is ridiculous, it sounds like belly

also it is like really good.

I think it's her best single. It's fun as hell, but about as pointed and barbed as most of PLMS. It's sardonic on the surface, but you can still hear the heavy heart underneath.

I hate this single so much

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ otm

It's grown on me quite a bit over the last 24 hours, but I still have no idea what to expect from the album.

the first single seemed to be a natural extension of the sound and attitude of the last album. this one, tho . . .

is an extension of the attitude of her on stage... I remember seeing videos of her live at the Pitchfork festival a few years ago and being really bummed. Realizing then that there's no way I want to ever see her play live.

But I don't hate this song. Kinda indifferent. So far based on this thread I'm not sure if that opinion is allowed!

lol. it's allowed, i'm pretty sure!

i don't like the song, which could put me in a near-exclusive club. who knows?

i swear like two days before this revive i found myself wondering what happened to this terrible artist, guess i know now

The album is half Alternative Nation mixtape (bad) and half spooky PLMS vibes (good). It really sounds like two different artists to me.

I have very much cooled on EMA's older stuff, both PLMS and Red State, after revisiting so I don't have a dog in this fight. I just find the change from "This is great, it sounds like the 90s" to "This is terrible, it sounds like the 90s" kinda perplexing. (I would really like if she sounded like Belly, I absolutely *loved* Belly.) I guess it's more like... use better descriptors, please.

It's in the voice basically. I don't care at all if something sounds like something from the 90s but she has a very generic rock voice and a weakness for melodrama when she lets rip whereas in the more restrained, hypnotic songs I think she sounds fantastic. Any less derivative? Probably not, but I far prefer it.

Is this gonna be her Celebrity Skin?

It's gonna be her 'New Jersey'...

i was alone in the citaaay

Only one listen in, but aside from "So Blonde," where are the songs?!

This album makes me sad. I almost want to take back my support of Martyrs.

It is *because* of Martyrs that this album (so far) makes me sad.

I think I'm in love with her and all that I think she stands for. She just seems happy and so well adjusted and free and a real lover. She seems way more of a lover than a critic.
I like to play her music alone and play it loud, maybe with a pint or two. I love how there is a seeming disconnect between the sparse electronics and guitar and the richness of her vocals. I love the subtle changes within the songs. Some parts are so amazing that you wonder if they were happy accidents instead of immaculately sequenced. Have not been this big of a fan of an artists first two albums since Le Tigre or the White Stripes.

he's SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

blonde

http://25.media.tumblr.com/9cd48e9a89876c2b37488e88bc6bc8a4/tumblr_n1ikrphI9h1todheko1_400.gif

I mean I know this song is not ~typical EMA~ but I have such a soft spot for summertime sunny day shoegaze jams that I just want to listen to it on repeat

guys what if this song is actually better than anything that Lush or Ride did

warm lush overdriven guitars with stoned reverby vocals, suneshine all around, crack open a beer and chill by the pool

song owns video owns vibe owns

this is one of those songs that like seems like it sounds like a million other songs but when I actually stop and try to think of other songs that sound like this w/ this vibe i just draw a blank

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfkKIH6ggcA

2 yrs later and still blasting "So Blonde" for zenith summertime vibes

New album, Exile in the Outer Ring, out August 25!

the new song is good!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7epnE7mxPM

I know nothing
Lasts forever
If you don’t love me, someone will

8-)

Love this new song!

I've not really followed her career deeply so I don't know if this is as strong or not compared to previous stuff but this new album is A+

Haven't heard the new one but Past Life Martyred Saints is still amazing 6 years later.

Goes for like $6-7 on discogs these days... what's the deal? Not that it's super indicative of anything except supply > demand but still... did it not age well for most people?

This reminds me that I once opened for her and Downtown Boys and she (and they) were extremely nice & cool

I see her albums pretty cheap in used bins a lot as well. but in general music by non cis male solo artists tends to have diminished resale value (with some exceptions of course)

I'm sure her somewhat avant leanings aren't much help either

i still give past life martyred saints a spin every now and then -- it holds up well, though California doesn't feel like as much of a standout single as it once did (for context, it came in at #3 on p4k's eoy singles list). I don't think i've played anything from the second album since the year it came out

perhaps "suffered" a bit from overexposure, always seemed kind of niche to me in its aesthetic

it's also quite dark so for me personally it's not something I listen to that much

I was very impressed with the theme of the last record. really enjoyed the interviews about the kinds of ideological conversations she would get into and how the best shows were always at the boundaries between the cities and the suburbs, she had her finger on something being able to address those issues without falling into easy condemnations, while at the same time not letting the evil off the hook. what she does isn't always a kind of pop music I intuitively get, but y'know local bay area family means I root for and I thought that last one was going to be her biggest

I hope she doubles down and goes further into it now that 2020's made all those issues even less ignorable

i know i gave the full album a spin at least once but i don't recall much about it. should try it again. "california" was/is tremendous

I listened to this again a few months back, and its still a very impressive record in the way that Fetch the Bolt Cutters is a very impressive record, though my enthusiasm may have dimmed a tiny bit.

PLMS takes me back to an alternate reality, somewhere in 1997, where this album sits comfortably next to Sonic Youth's Washing Machine and Cat Power's What Would the Community Think.

I think the description upthread of how she evokes both the best and the worst of the alternative 90's is otm. Her songwriting - like most of the songwriting of 90's alternative - leaves a lot to be desired, but she's great at evoking a past life. Problem for me with the follow-up albums to PLMS is that the clearer the production, the less evocative of nostalgia her songs get and her sound is all about nostalgia.