Emily Jane White

Hailing from California, Emily Jane White issued her first full-length record as a singer and songwriter in 2007. Her approach draws on the traditions of American blues and folk while also reflecting the work of contemporary female singer/songwriters such as PJ Harvey and Kate Bush, prompting comparisons to Chan Marshall of Cat Power and Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star.

During her time at the University of California Santa Cruz in the early 2000s, White led the band the Diamond Star Halos and refined her skills as a singer/songwriter. Following graduation she spent time in France, where she launched her solo career. She returned to California in 2006, settling in San Francisco, and teamed with producer Wainwright Hewlett to create her debut album, Dark Undercoat (2007). The set first appeared on the Oakland, California-based Double Negative Records before Talitres licensed it for worldwide distribution in 2008, when it climbed to number 143 on the French albums chart. Her next album, Victorian American, came out on Talitres in France in 2009 and on Milan in the United States in early 2010; that same year she contributed vocals to indie pop band Lonely Drifter Karen’s album Fall of Spring.

White’s third album, Ode to Sentience, surfaced on Talitres in 2011 and reached American listeners a year later via Antenna Farm Records. Both releases also registered on the French albums chart. Late in 2013 Talitres and Important Records issued her fourth album, the lusher but still brooding Blood/Lines. They Moved in Shadow All Together, whose title references the opening of Cormac McCarthy’s novel Outer Dark, was tracked in Oakland and San Francisco across two years; it reentered the French charts in spring 2016, with United Kingdom and North American editions appearing shortly afterward. On 2019’s Immanent Fire, White enlisted arranger Anton Patzner to craft an epic, immersive sound while she examined a feminine response to the approaching extinction of the human species.