EMA - The Future's Void
New millennial deep thought on Erika M. Anderson's second album as EMA, with producer/musician Leif Shackelford helping out.
ERIKA M. ANDERSON'S DEBUT as EMA, 2011's Past Life Martyred Saints, was a screaming skull of cobalt-edged personal outpourings. On the follow up, she continues to blur the lines between private and public, but in a very different way. The Future’s Void finds her contemplating the same arid space as Spike Jonze’s 2013 film Her and Dave Eggers' novel The Circle – the virtual world gone mad. With lashings of aluminium-flavoured industrial pop and references to H.P. Lovecraft and William Gibson, she casts herself as a prophet of dystopic doom. On the new age doo-wop of 3Jane she sings about travelling down the lonely superhighways (“disassociation… I guess it’s just a modern disease”). Meanwhile on Neuromancer (think Stomp meets Throbbing Gristle) she sings about taking selfies (“it’s such a narcissistic baby, it’s such a new millennial baby”) against a conga line of doomed tragedy. Cracking, timely stuff. Watch the video for So Blonde...
And here’s 3Jane...