Emmy The Great

Emmy the Great crafts indie folk-pop that is both introspective and subtly innovative, moving fluidly between tender and aching moods. Her opening full-length from 2009, First Love, centered on grounded combinations of acoustic and electric guitars, yet she broadened the palette for her third album, Second Love, issued in 2016, by introducing airy electronic layers.

Born Emma-Lee Moss in Hong Kong, she relocated with her family to England and soon became a regular presence in the city’s rising anti-folk community. Early on she worked alongside Lightspeed Champion, Fyfe Dangerfield, and Jeremy Warmsley, while also appearing live with Martha Wainwright and Kimya Dawson. Her first release under the Emmy the Great name, the single “Secret Circus,” arrived in 2006, followed the next year by the My Bad EP. Close work with Euan Hinshelwood accompanied extensive festival appearances that included Green Man Festival, Latitude Festival, and Glastonbury, leading to the 2009 release of First Love on the Close Harbour label.

The sudden end of an engagement in 2011 prompted the writing and recording of her second album, Virtue, again with Hinshelwood’s involvement and with Gareth Jones handling production; the record broadened her sound and subject matter alike. That same year she joined Ash frontman Tim Wheeler for the seasonal collection This Is Christmas. After contributing songs to the 2013 romantic comedy Austenland, further travels informed the 2015 EP S, her debut for Bella Union, on which she also supplied the closing theme for the Mystery Show podcast. Bella Union then put out the relationship-focused Second Love in 2016, complete with liner notes from her friend, writer Jon Ronson.

A visit back to Hong Kong at the end of 2017 led her to record the fourth album, April, in Brooklyn during early 2018 alongside producers Beatriz Artola and Dani Markham; the set finally appeared on Bella Union in October 2020 once maternity leave had concluded.