Scout Niblett

Scout Niblett emerged from Nottingham, England, as a counterpart to the bold, sharp-witted, and candid women who began writing songs across America at the dawn of the 2000s. Repeatedly likened to Cat Power and her fellow English artist PJ Harvey, the performer born Emma Louise established her distinct value through a powerful, austere vocal delivery and a taste for stripped-down compositions built solely around drums and voice. Her reputation also grew from a taste for the unconventional, notably a collection of wigs. Yet her words revealed a weightier dimension, carving out a domain in which love and its attendant emotions held sway and assumed independent forms. Though she frequently performed alone, Niblett periodically drew on an ever-changing roster of supporting musicians and regularly enlisted the engineering skills of Steve Albini.

She adopted her performing name from Harper Lee’s well-known novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Niblett first appeared on record in 2001 with a split 7" shared with Songs: Ohia for the Indiana label Secretly Canadian Records. Her debut album, Sweet Heart Fever, arrived shortly afterward. A second 7" followed in 2002. The year 2003 brought both the I Conjure Series EP and the full-length I Am, the latter captured by engineer Steve Albini at Electrical Audio Studios in Chicago. A spring 2005 U.S. tour alongside the Kills marked the arrival of Kidnapped by Neptune, her first release for the Too Pure imprint. Maintaining her working relationship with Albini, she issued This Fool Can Die Now in October 2007, an album that incorporated four duets with Will Oldham, and then delivered The Calcination of Scout Niblett in 2010, among her most austere recordings. The fiery and intensely personal It’s Up to Emma appeared in 2013.