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EMILY BARKER

Emily Barker

A Dark Murmuration Of Words

    Dark Murmuration of Words contends with a modern era built on racial and gender inequality, poverty and slavery, environmental exploitation and the climate crisis, finding them all connected by the dark shadow of patriarchy, pursuits of power, and the suppression of history. “Finding meaning becomes challenging with the deafening clamour of social media in this age of fake news,” she says, “but it’s important to try discerning the patterns, learning to pay attention to things closer to home as well as to overwhelming global issues.” Referencing Emily Dickinson’s assertion that “If you take care of the small things, the big things take care of themselves,” Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on “Strange Weather”, “Where Have The Sparrows Gone?” looks outside an apartment window and imagines a post-apocalyptic birdless London, and a monument to a Confederate general comes alive for a “how-I-got-away-with-it” confession on “Machine.” Throughout A Dark Murmuration of Words, all of our choices, our unspoken prejudices, our carelessness, connect us to the whole, but becoming aware and honest on a local, personal scale, can begin to effect change, allow for healing, and tease out beauty from chaos. “Like the starlings in a murmuration, where the movement of each individual bird is related to just seven of its closest neighbours,” Emily Barker says, “none of us are aware of the fluctuating shapes being created by the flock.”

    STAFF COMMENTS

    Barry says: Emily Barker is exactly what we need nowadays, a wash of politically charged lyricism, but enclosed within a calming, serene shell. Brittle guitars and Barker's strong but smooth vocals coalesce into a soaring and meditative whole.

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Return Me
    2. Geography
    3. The Woman Who Planted Trees
    4. Where Have The Sparrows Gone?
    5. Strange Weather
    6. Machine
    7. When Stars Cannot Be Found
    8. Ordinary
    9. Any More Goodbyes
    10. Sonogram

    Sweet Kind of Blue is her first full studio album since 2013's critically lauded Dear River and marks a new sound for Barker as she returns to the soul and blues influences that first inspired her to become a songwriter and musician.

    Emily Barker's new album was recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis with Grammy winning producer Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and an allstar cast of Memphis session players.

    Emily Barker is best known as the writer and performer of the award-winning theme to BBC crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae and Applewood Road. In 2015 she composed her first full feature film soundtrack for Jake Gavin's Hector, which won a Scottish BAFTA for its lead actor, Peter Mullan.

    TRACK LISTING

    Sweet Kind Of Blue
    Sister Goodbye
    Sunrise
    No. 5 Hurricane
    If We Forget
    To Dance
    Crazy Life
    Over My Shoulder
    Change
    More!
    Underneath My Honey Moon

    **The Deluxe Version Has A Bonus CD With Other Tracks

    Emily Barker

    The Toerag Sessions

      Recorded live to tape at Toerag Studios, London in January 2015.

      The Toerag Sessions is a collection of solo versions of my songs, recorded live to 2-track tape at Toerag Studios in London with grammy-winning producer Liam Watson (The White Stripes - Elephant).

      Over the last few years, in between touring with my bands The Red Clay Halo and Vena Portae, I've played lots of solo shows. Often people will come up to me at the end of those shows and ask if there is any way to get hold of recordings of the songs as they've just heard them - just me, my guitar and my harmonica.

      Up until now, that hasn't been possible, but with The Red Clay Halo currently on hiatus after their final tour last year, I took the opportunity to go in to the studio to record this selection of songs from my back catalogue. Many of these songs are the ones I usually choose to play at solo shows, with a few additions. The songs go right back to my first UK band the-low-country, through all my albums with The Red Clay Halo, and including a brand new song, 'Anywhere Away', written last year as the theme to the forthcoming British movie Hec McAdam (starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen).

      TRACK LISTING

      1. Little Deaths 03:21
      2. Nostalgia 03:48
      3. Sideline 03:27
      4. Disappear 02:55
      5. Letters 04:19
      6. Home 03:58
      7. All Love Knows 03:54
      8. The Dark Road 03:56
      9. Lord I Want An Exit 04:18
      10. Blackbird 02:52
      11. This Is How It's Meant To Be 03:54
      12. Anywhere Away 04:03


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