Music, Style & Culture

Emmy The Great: ‘Part Of A Good Indie Record Is The Mistakes’

The anti-folk whimsy's gone, but the romance remains.

"Me and my friend got asked to have a meeting with a production company who wanted to make a reality show. It was my first glimpse into this crazy world where everyone assumes the only reason to do anything is to get massively famous. It’s very depressing." Needless to say, Emma-Lee Moss was never that keen on the idea. This tale may have pre-dated her 2009 debut, 'First Love', but informs the position she now finds herself in. After a self-imposed period of exile she is back with a more diverse and expansive sophomore album, 'Virtue'.

Lead single, 'Iris', is getting plenty of radio play and a UK tour is about to kick off, including a turn at Glastonbury. But surely it would have been quicker to just go on TV, get in the pages of Heat and then let nature take its course? Perhaps, but the fact is that since Moss and band-mate Euan Hinshelwood first started releasing music, she has often been miscast. She was originally grouped with the London anti-folk scene that exploded in 2005, not that she had too much to do with it.

"I actually only met Mumford & Sons for the first and only time last summer. And I don’t even know Laura Marling. She is so much younger than me. What is she, like, 15? When would we have hung out? This is something I’ve wondered for a long time: ‘Why can't I let people talk about me how they want?’ My problem was that I really, really did work with Lightspeed Champion. I really, really did work with Jeremy Warmsley. I don’t know about the others but I felt sad. I was in a gang. And they were in a gang. I felt like the outsider in a group of people I’d never met. Hopefully it will all flush away eventually.”

This album will undoubtedly help with that. Moss has now found her voice and found it, importantly, on her own terms without comparison or compromise. “First Love was so constrained. We had so little money and so little time. It was me and Euan trying to produce it ourselves with no experience. With the second album there was not a huge amount of expectation. I was able to just go away and write something I felt and we made it and then we formed a band after. I feel like this album represents me a lot more personally with the lyrics and the story and the band musically – our tastes, and what we want to sound like.”

'Virtue', it should be said, is a stunning follow-up, full of surprises and punctured by moments of both euphoria and tenderness. 'First Love' was warmly received in the UK as well as in the US - where it was #7 in the New York Times Top 10 albums of 2009 – but this is the sound of Emmy The Great with the brakes off.

“We have a lot more intention with this album. I would like it if this was the first thing people heard and not the first record. I would recommend people listen this album first. I love 'First Love' because of the accident quality of it. Listen to your favourite bands first record. I mean, Radiohead? Have you ever listened to 'Pablo Honey' all the way through? But there are some amazing moments because when people don’t know what the fuck they are doing, sometimes they do something amazing. There is a certain first album charm that I’m really glad we had. I’m glad we didn’t go with a massive ass producer and a big label. When I listen to it back I think it’s a good indie record. Part of a good indie record is the mistakes.”

The final track on 'Virtue' – and possibly album highlight - 'Trellick Tower', is a heart wrenchingly sparse love letter and proof that you can find something love in the most unusual places. "When I got engaged we moved to West London, next to Trellick Tower. And it was this little pocket that I'd never explored before. It was a brand new city in a city I knew so well. I am so proud to have that in London.”

Named after one of London’s most brutal, yet iconic, landmarks, Emmy The Great can be added to an increasing list who have referenced the tower block in their work. “It was designed by Erno Goldfinger and Ian Fleming named the character in James Bond after him. If you look right at the top of it looks like a villain lives there.”

It has featured in Blur lyrics as well as videos for Gorillaz and The Good, The Bad and The Queen. This pricks Moss’s interest: "Can I namedrop? Damon Albarn goes to my gym. And I know Paul Simonon lives around the corner too. Maybe they like it as much as I do?”

The anti-folk whimsy may have gone – if indeed it was every truly there – but the romance remains. “I’ll leave a little note in the steam in the sauna. ‘Dear Damon, do you love Trellick Tower too?’”

Emmy The Great's new album 'Virtue' will be released on 13th June via Close Harbour.