Emma Kupa

Emma Kupa led U.K. groups including Standard Fare and Mammoth Penguins throughout the 2010s, channeling indie influences from both sides of the Atlantic that dated to the 1980s and 1990s, most notably the C-86 aesthetic. On her first solo album, the 2020 release It Will Come Easier, she retained her customary buoyant yet ragged style while shifting toward greater intimacy and a more pronounced folk orientation than her band recordings had shown.

Born in Sheffield to Bella Donna, the former bassist in the anarcho-punk outfit Poison Girls, Kupa began composing material and picking up guitar at age 15 through informal sessions with friends. She took on bass and lead vocals when she launched the indie pop/rock trio Standard Fare in 2005 after encountering guitarist Danny Howe at a Manchester show; drummer Andy Beswick completed the lineup. Early tracks earned national airplay, leading to the March 2010 debut album The Noyelle Beat on Melodic in the U.K. and Bar/None in the U.S. Producer Alan Smyth helmed the follow-up, Out of Sight Out of Town, which appeared on Melodic in early 2012. The group dissolved the next year.

After the split Kupa deliberately immersed herself in numerous musical ventures, soon joining the American twee-punk band Gold-Bears and forming Without Feathers with Nat Johnson and Rory McVicar; the latter project issued the EP three songs in mid-2013. Having moved to Cambridge, she next assembled Mammoth Penguins alongside bassist Mark Boxall and drummer Tom Barden, handling vocals and guitar herself.

The wiaiwya label put out her solo EP Home Cinema, a family-themed recording, in early 2015. That July Fortuna Pop! released Mammoth Penguins’ debut album Hide and Seek. In 2017 the Hayman Kupa Band, her collaboration with Darren Hayman, delivered a self-titled album, while Mammoth Penguins issued the expansive concept album John Doe on wiaiwya, featuring appearances by Haiku Salut’s Sophie Barkerwood, Alto 45’s Joe Bear, and Russell Lomas. Early the following year Faith Taylor joined on guitar and Bear returned for Mammoth Penguins’ Fika Recordings debut There’s No Fight We Can’t Both Win. Kupa returned to Fika for her own full-length introduction, It Will Come Easier, in September 2020, enlisting McVicar, Boxall, Taylor, and additional contributors.