Album: Emmy the Great - April / 月音 | reviews, news & interviews
Album: Emmy the Great - April / 月音
Album: Emmy the Great - April / 月音
Singer-songwriter comes back with a luscious album loosely conceived around her Hong Kong origins
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/mast_image_landscape/public/mastimages/a4165830466_10.jpg?itok=YXiBplBt)
Emma-Lee Moss has a lovely voice. It conveys an ache, a longing, but is sweet too, and well-mannered. Combine this with an aptitude for literate, thought-provoking lyrics and hooky songs, and Emmy the Great is quite the package. It’s a mystery, then, why she has not been critically and commercially elevated to the status of peers such as Laura Marling and KT Tunstall. Her fourth album is a delight, rich in imagery and ideas. It confirms her as an artist always well worth following.
That April / 月音 is so enjoyable is a pleasing surprise. Moss’s last album, Second Love, was a misstep into more experimental production, interesting but emotionally less engaging. Her first two albums, acoustic guitar-led, were the establishing gems (for the record, she and Ash’s Tim Wheeler were also responsible for this writer’s favourite Christmas album of all time). April / 月音 combines studio trickery with classic songwriting and is loosely inspired by her recent return to Hong Kong, where the half-Chinese Moss grew up until age 12.
The far eastern influence trims rather than dominates, bells and xylophone sounds on songs such as the slow, thoughtful “Okinawa: Abud”, but elsewhere the stompy, organ-laced strum of “Dandelions/Liminal” is pure indie-pop, boasting great lines (“Heartache’s healthy for the body/That is your official line/But if pain is healthy for the body, baby?/You too could have a body like mine!”). Studio wizardry is used effectively, whether the delicate orchestral feel of the beautiful “Chang-E” or layering her voice in the epic chordal stew of “Your Hallucinations”. The arrangements are imaginative throughout, but always keeping the songs central to their purpose. It is, then, a lush album. The highlights are multiple, from the exploding inner fulfilment of “A Window / O’Keefe” to the sprightly, playful narrative of “Mary”.
In the past, Emmy the Great’s catchy Bohemian vignettes of love and loss have portrayed a woman searching, but on April / 月音 there’s a sense she may have found where she’s going. Happily her reflective songwriting remains as vital as ever.
Below: Watch the video for "Chang-E" by Emmy the Great
rating
Share this article
Subscribe to theartsdesk.com
Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.
To take a subscription now simply click here.
And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?
more New music
![Peter Baumann in 1976, as he was on the cover of his first solo album 'Romance ’76' - before he left Tangerine Dream](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Peter%20Baumann%20-%20Phase%20By%20Phase%20The%20Virgin%20Albums_header_1000.jpg?itok=EzsjhNAs)
![Scratch goes into space for the last time](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Lee%20Scratch%20Perry%20and%20Youth%20-%20Spaceship%20To%20Mars%20TAD.jpg?itok=s5kEO00o)
![Mercury Rev's 'Born Horses': mind-blowing](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/mercury%20rev%20born%20horses.jpg?itok=NjxK8lkR)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/cover%20Galliano%20-%20Halfway%20Somewhere.jpg?itok=qPSPe5ZH)
!['Cave saddling up and riding through a misty land of choirs and strings'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WildGod.jpg?itok=k073fxiu)
!['A remarkable experience of nostalgic romance and melancholic glamour from this cinematic star'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/PXL_20240824_201115220.jpg?itok=OVpiKCWg)
![blink-182 enchant with their performance of hits new and old](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/blinkfinal.jpg?itok=FZhU6D-j)
!['Zenón doesn’t do in-your-face polemic; his ways are altogether cleverer and subtler'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Cover_Zen%C3%B3n_Golden_City_%20resize.jpg?itok=rS3bsW6-)
!['This was about jazz and its offshoots still surging with life and still pushing against boundaries'](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/WOH2024_LaurenLuxenberg_S8A5347.jpg?itok=9AReosNS)
![Shadowplay, with main-man Brandi Ifgray at the front](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/Shadowplay_Header_1000_Stupido%20Records%20Jouko%20Lehtola.jpg?itok=P8CwWd4j)
![](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/659de5ec82182e3a83f4a9ed045ee50dee9b577e1eda46200bbd8c5b051944e2.jpg?itok=9EGs30UR)
![The new New Age gathers](https://theartsdesk.com/sites/default/files/styles/thumbnail/public/mastimages/medfest1.jpg?itok=0M9Qf3Yt)
Add comment