Words by Justin Turford
On a rare outing together, the Truth & Lies team headed out on a muggy Sunday afternoon in Nottingham to witness a gorgeously intimate show from E.R.Thorpe with equally sensitive support from frequent collaborator Huw Costin (Cwm Saerbren is his label) and the excellent newcomer Lily Clarkson. In a darkened pub room, the audience were spellbound by Emma’s songs of death and life, of fears and failures, the earth and of nature. Sometimes it feels as though all of these subjects blur into each other such is her skill at blending the direct with the opaque.
Raised on the blues (her Dad Kevin Thorpe was a respected blues vocalist and guitarist), her own hypnotic take on the form has been described as ‘dark folk’ and it fits. Like an East Midlands Karen Dalton (but without the Oklahoma scorched jazz voice), Emma’s strength comes from both her fragility and her ability to cut to the veins of the subject. Her voice can be as sweet as a young girl or burn with a quiet fire.
You may have come across Emma before outside of her own solo releases. Her recurring contributions to Huw’s Torn Sail project have seen her stunning voice adding ghostly romance to many songs including ‘Ricochets’ alongside the great Mark Lanegan and Huw himself. She is also an equal vertex of the outstanding earthy-folk triangle that is The Low Drift alongside Matt Hill and Huw again (where I first saw her live actually).
As with all these projects there is a feeling of a profound connection with the land (and to her own heart). Her songs sound both contemporary and ancient and not unlike PJ Harvey’s examinations of local English folk traditions, Emma’s compositions bring the dead and unsaid to a kind of life. Vividly displayed imagery sits alongside private moments of clouded intent, like hidden messages relayed in plain sight.
Emma’s new E.P. is a little more produced than I expected but it is not unwelcome. Performing in a live setting, her haunting voice and powerful circular guitar playing are enough to unsettle and enrapt but here, with the aid of dusty loops and field recordings from James Bennet, there seems to be an attempt to reach a slightly wider audience. Folk and roots music in any form has a difficult time trying to get wider exposure via the media gatekeepers these days and so perhaps, the subtly leftfield groove that underpins tracks 'such as ‘Guided By The Sea Came Death’ will grab Emma some more deserved airplay.
The haunting trip hop-folk of ‘Merle’ is a love letter of sorts to one of her children (I think so anyway based on the video), the song a beautifully constructed watercolour of gentle emotional power, lovely musicianship and a particularly strong vocal melody.
The stripped bare ‘Say It Is Not So’ flows and flounders in an Americana-esque murder ballad way, the ambiguous nature of the lyrics lending the song a disquieting edge. Emma’s ability to add drama with just the subtlest of guitar pressure really warrants a close listen.
Next up is the spectral slow burn of ‘Greystone’, a shadowy song about a chance meeting during the Solstice. The ‘grey stones’ of the title suggesting the Bronze Age stone circle of Nine Ladies in Derbyshire, a pagan spot of preternatural ambience. The drawn out echo of the washed out synth complimenting the eerie tone of the song.
Live, Emma comes across as an accomplished yet shy performer but when she played the Polly Harvey sounding ‘Misty Morning’ with its heavy modal chords and darkly poetic musings, the audience were trapped inside the performance, experiencing a foreboding aura of ominous woods and dimly lit dread.
Managing to sound both old-timey and contemporary is a formidable thing to achieve and Emma does it with great ease. Blending stark and abstract imagery with a voice that can caress or unsettle, allied with the perfectly understated way that she plays her guitar makes her the real deal in my eyes. Apprehension never sounded so seductive. 9/10.