Emily Jane White is a musician, songwriter, and poet from Oakland, CA. She began performing under her own name in 2003 and released her first album "Dark Undercoat" in 2007, with "Victorian America", "Ode to Sentience", and "Blood/Lines", "They Moved in Shadow All Together" (2016) following. White has cultivated a dedicated audience in Europe and North America.
Written over a two year period, Emily Jane White’s sixth album “Immanent Fire” recognizes our moment at the precipice of species annihilation, as she guides her listener through the feeling of life on a planet at the brink of destruction. The album is co-produced by Anton Patzner and Emily Jane White. Anton Patzner also engineered and arranged the songs. All of the songs were written by Emily Jane White, and recorded in Emeryville, California.
Written over a two year period, Emily Jane White’s sixth album “Immanent Fire” recognizes our moment at the precipice of species annihilation, as she guides her listener through the feeling of life on a planet at the brink of destruction.
Acknowledging these conditions in which we live, White offers what she has been best suited to on all of her albums : an exploration of the internal world. What is the feeling of life in the capitalocene ? Here, White offers a compassionate but also raw exposure of the anxiety, addiction and depression that have become normative. At the same time, she produces an alternative path : the revaluation of the feminine, the receptive, the vulnerable, the emotional. A turn toward the center, the appreciation and experience of life itself—a practice which has, in our moment of ubiquitous despair, become a form of resistance.
Ten songs present a deepening storm of melody that offers the hopeful ray of Emily’s voice as the waves of rhythm crash and dance around her. Just before—or perhaps after—the despair seems to overwhelm, her vocals open up and bloom like a lens flare, creating an ecstatically painful emotional brilliance that the listener clings onto with pleasure. Her voice is the listener’s guide, a steady and reassuring presence as they march through eerie landscapes, caverns of reverb, church organs and synthetic arpeggios. The occasional samples of birds, insects, and thunder mix with the blend of electronic and acoustic instruments, a subtle reminder of the necessary link between the fate of our ecology and the moral use of technology.
White’s new album juxtaposes a heavy melancholy with an intimate touching lightness through her singular alto voice backed by orchestral percussion, soaring strings, heavy guitars, a choir of voices, and an overall cinematic presentation of dynamic songwriting.
« By parrying trend in favour of stylistic purity and lyrical depth, Emily Jane White has produced a timeless piece: dense and demanding, but worth every moment you can give it. »
P. Neeson, The Skinny
« Emily Jane White’s latest concoctions fair far better and reward the devoted listener handsomely »
The Girls Are
« Emily Jane White creates magical music that can lift the spirits and rip the very heart out of you as her whim dictates and her ability to capture a mood just with a slight turn of phrase or change in tone is remarkable »
Sonic Abuses
« She plumbs darker territory here; the same twisted folk, minor chords, children’s story rhymes and melancholic concerns favoured by the likes of Mazzy Star and Elliott Smith. »
I Heart