EMA, Past Life Martyred Saints, May 10, Souterrain Transmissions, Score: 78
Noisy pop with attitude and honesty to spare. EMA’s album is the equivalent of her walking up and getting right in your face, staring into your eyes defiantly. Apparently she does this at her shows—actual confrontation with her audience.
EMA is the solo endeavor of Erika Anderson, previously of Gowns. Her music features, guitar, some piano, fuzzed-out sounds, and her uniquely intense vocals. It feels like she is shouting down a horde of personal and outside demons. While she eschews comfort and perfection at every turn, each moment of the ride is compelling.
“California” plays like a coffee-house poetry slam as Erika unleashes a tidal wave of thoughts about outsider-dom in the Golden State. The result is an odd, cathartic beauty. If anything, Erika does find beauty in catharsis. Her voice has the effect of a howl or a scream, even when she isn’t shouting. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the confrontational clatter of ”Milkman”. “My tongue is blazing” she declares, and you are inclined to literally believe her.
“Red Star” starts off in a haze and stretches on for over six minutes. The second-longest track on the album, it never truly outstays its welcome. Erika is weary and impatient from waiting for a loved one, intoning ”If you won’t love me / someone will”. It feels more like a threat than a self-confidence boost.
“Butterfly Knife” also reads like a threat, but expresses a festering kind of hurt that EMA relates and empathizes with but is not hers alone. The title denotes delicacy in pain but the track itself is relentless, kicking off with guitar and a groan and sliding into her chanting “you fucked your arms up” as she relates a story of insidious violence.
The whispered intro of “Breakfast” leads into a kind of sing-song clap-along mood. Erika repeats “Mama’s in the bedroom / don’t you stop” just as if she’s cooing at a child. The song slowly increases momentum by the time she mentions “Big fat breakfast”. It feels easy-going, but don’t be fooled: it’s the equivalent of a wake-up alarm.
“Anteroom” is another one of the album’s quieter moments, including several measures of a cappella, but the lyrics are weighty, if you listen. “I can sense a ghost in the machine / No one has to shriek and / No one has to worry now / I will get exactly what is coming for me”.
Actually you can’t help but listen.
