With her recent singles ‘Playing It Safe’ and ‘Plastic Swings’, EMMMA has stepped out from the shadows to embrace the spotlight. Now that moment of redefining herself reaches a new peak as she unveils her debut EP ‘Secondary Character’, which features the new focus track ‘More Than That’.
As Notion recently noted, the combination of EMMMA’s gorgeous, multi-genre alt-pop and introspective lyrical reflections will resonate with fans of Phoebe Bridgers, MUNA and Boygenius. That point is affirmed throughout ‘Secondary Character’, which sees EMMMA find catharsis by challenging the parts of her personality that have held her back a little in the past: taking the safe option, not standing up for herself, and stepping back to allow others to shine. Yet for all that self-doubt, what emerges on the EP is an artist with a new-found confidence and desire to present herself to the world as the person she really is.
EMMMA says, “All of these things led me to the person I am now, and I’m so grateful for them. People can interpret these songs in their own way, but I think it’s very comforting to know that you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be. Hopefully by sharing my experiences, if someone else is going through the same, I can make them feel like they’re not on their own.”
The new focus track ‘More Than That’ charts EMMMA’s experiences when she agreed to continue a college relationship long-distance after she had graduated. It’s a less cynical cousin to Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘Please Please Please’ and sees EMMMA reflecting fondly on those formative years over swooning harmonies and propulsive percussion. Her highest energy track to date, it’s a song of youthful optimism that love can overcome anything – complete with a personal reference to Bon Iver’s ‘Holocene’. The subsequent context, however, adds a tinge of sadness and nostalgia that their shared idealism didn’t quite work out.
She adds, “‘More Than That’ was written before I broke up with my ex. The song details that even though we were long distance for quite a while, it didn’t matter because we were more than the miles between us and that we’d be fine since we grew up in our formative years together and nothing could take that away.”
The ‘Secondary Character’ EP is completed by another new song in the shape of its title track. It’s a song about love in the context of friendship, and each verse sees EMMMA referencing literature in which a secondary character makes a sacrifice to benefit the lead, going from ‘Lord of the Rings’ to ‘Chronicles of Narnia’ and finally ‘Harry Potter’.
Listen to the EP HERE.
Photo credit – press photo