EMMALEEN: ‘The Sun Will Still Shine When You Die’

As regulars know, we feature a lot of heavy music in these pages. Sometimes heaviness shows up in the least expected places. Would you believe in a banjo? EMMALEEN will make a believer out of you.

Her new album ‘The Sun Will Still Shine When You Die’ (2023) is beautifully bluesy music with notes of melancholy and sorrow, but also hope and peace. Music for a cloudy day, if you will, and we’re getting right into them now. Emmaleen’s haunting, oaken voice is warm, hearty, and strangely soothing, even while singing sad songs about sad situations. It is, after all, witchy blues and Gothic folk. I call it downright enchanting.

There’s a macabre air to songs like the swampy “Timesickness.” I envision long, lonely days and nights spent on 19th century prairies waiting for loved ones, waiting for the weather to change, and plenty of time to stew on the grim reality of things.

The eleventh hour is here
The world is over run and underpaid

The smart instrumentation makes each song captivating, whether brisk and up-tempo or slow and unhurried (those bass drum drops on the opening “Wailing Trees”). The recording captures the experience with great clarity and presence. I felt as if she could have been playing my piano across the room during the dark, dreamy “Ballad in Blues.”

I really appreciated the “Interlude,” with its spontaneous singing and spontaneous noises from the band. When “Forever and Ever” started immediately following, I was all ears. Story time! Emmaleen convinces you of every verse, painting a word picture that is vivid and easy to sympathize with. In the most amazing and unexpected way, the mood changes to a bluesy country folk that transports us to a time before all the sound and fury of this present age.

“Sun and Moon” follows and it’s a bouncy, pleasant number, with the bass drum rejoining us for moments. You can feel your cares starting to lift. By the final song, “Lullaby For Lonely Nights,” you can really float away. True to its name, it is gentle and reassuring, starting with banjo and voice and then appropriately timed appearances by the harmonica, bass, bass drum, piano, and guitar.

The Sun Will Still Shine When You Die is recommended for fans of Tom Waits, Jim White, Odetta, Karen Dalton, Son House, Diamanda Galas, 16 Horsepower, and Billie Holiday. And if some of those names are new to you (as they were to me), it presents an opportunity to explore a genre that still finds power and relevance in our busy, sick, and haggard world. Emmaleen has tapped into one of the powers innate in all of us, and that is the outlet of song, giving release to our burdens and expression to our joys. Out in digital format on October 20th (pre-order here).

Give ear…

SOME BUZZ

Born in 1991 in Namibia, Emmaleen Tomalin is a force to be reckoned with in the world of independent music. As a solo artist, she has crafted a unique and enchanting niche in the realm of witchy blues and gothic folk. Following the success of her debut album 'Songs from the Unseen, the Unsaid and the Unborn’ in 2022, Tomalin has continued to captivate audiences with her evocative storytelling and haunting melodies.

In February 2023, Tomalin unveiled 'The Other Side,’ a mesmerizing recording from 2015 that showcases the artist’s early mastery of her craft. This release served as a tantalizing prelude to her upcoming full-length album, 'The Sun will Still Shine When You Die,’ scheduled to be released on October 20, 2023.

The journey into the shadows continues with the release of the first three singles from the upcoming album. 'Wailing Trees,’ 'Sister Sister,’ and 'Timesickness’ were unveiled in August and September 2023, giving fans a taste of the ethereal landscapes and mystical narratives that await them. These singles set the stage for an immersive experience that transcends conventional musical boundaries.

'The Sun will Still Shine When You Die’ promises to be an inner journey into the realms of magic realism and spiritual introspection. Emmaleen’s time-traveling witchy blues and gothic folk songs transport listeners into another dimension, where bone-chilling moments coexist with raw vulnerability. The album’s slow pace, haunting vocals, resonator guitar, banjo, and sparse percussion create a sonic tapestry that is as unique as it is bewitching.

Recorded and engineered by Ruan Vos (Sonic Nursery) the recording process took four days - nine hours a day of live recording and overdubbing. All songs were recorded live with guitar, banjo or piano and vocals in two to four takes. Emmaleen wrote the bass lines during the recording process on acoustic bass. The percussion was improvised with handmade instruments and a kick drum.

Being the only guest musician, Lliezel Ellick performed cello on 'Wailing Trees’. It was Emmaleen’s intention to keep the music as clean and natural sounding as possible with an analogue 'hands on’ approach. The process still allowed room for spontaneous creativity in the moment.

Emmaleen chose to record very quickly to capture a small window in time of focused energy. “If I became too self-aware my performance would suffer - having a tight deadline gave me no time to think and forced me to feel my way through. We purposely left in certain sounds we liked such as; clearing my throat or the sound of my shoes shuffling. This being part of the music and the nature of live recording.” She comments.

The album serves as the next chapter in Tomalin’s artistic evolution, an amalgamation of old styles giving birth to something both timeless and fresh. In a deliberate departure from instant consumer culture, 'The Sun Will Still Shine When You Die’ invites audiences to embrace the deliberate and savor the nuances of a musical journey that defies the ordinary.

Brace yourselves for a musical experience that transcends the ordinary and takes you on a spellbinding adventure.