Artist: Emika
Release: Pretend/Professional Loving
‘Pretend‘, backed with ‘Professional Loving‘ is the new single from producer/performer Emika. Coming in advance of her debut self-titled long player, the Ninja Tune artist aims to reach out to a wider audience off the back of a series of glowing insider and press reports.
Emika is known to be an experimentalist, owing much to her mixed English/Czech background. Her sound has dabbled in techno (she currently is based in Berlin), house and dubstep, and she is keen to take influence from many different areas and fields. This multi-level approach can be seen in the two tracks on this latest release.
‘Pretend’ pairs almost nursery rhyme-like, sing-song vocals with a spare, menacing and disarming musical accompaniment.
The track is not particularly aimed at the dancefloor, being more of a warm-up track, but it does have a simple, headnodding appeal, which will get inside your head and under your skin. The track shows some great potential for remixers, and is given the treatment by Brandt Bauer Frick and Kyle Hall. Brandt Bauer Frick provide an excellent reworking – stripping down elements, building them back up in classic remix style and maintaining the structure of the track. The remix makes the song into more of a raw techno builder, which opens out into a piano-led party theme. Kyle Hall on the other hand, journeys into more of the low and the grimy, using snatches of the original version to show off another version of the electronic dream.
‘Professional Loving’ has a haunting, ethereal opening. The track begins with whispered/sung vocals before stuttering beats and an ominous background dominate. The track semi-drops into an empty, ruinous soundscape.
Both tracks resonate with images of alienation and aloneness, and I can honestly say that Emika provides us with interesting musical ideas which she morphs and moves to suit her own needs – the off-key piano section at end of ‘Professional Loving’ is genuinely weird and affecting. Her music has echoes of PJ Harvey, Beth Gibbons and Madonna at her best but Emika is also different and totally (post)-modern. This is high quality electronic music which has enough strength and power to appeal to a wide audience.
The album will be released on 3rd October, and is due to be launched on the 5th, at CAMP in London. Emika is also due to tour the US with the legendary Amin Tobin. Surely a star on the rise, you can check out the video for ‘Professional Loving’ below…
More about Emika here: www.emika.co.uk
Reviewer: Gideon Thomas
