Emma Gatrill: Women Make Music
We are incredibly grateful to the PRS Foundation for the funding that will enable us to begin pre-production and initial recording for Emma’s third album. The album will be an experimental, harp-led project that will centre on writing and collaborating with percussionists.
Emma Gatrill is a multi-instrumentalist based in Brighton, UK. Her debut, 2012’s Chapter I, was a poignant collection of songs based around her then-latest acquisition – the harp. Subtly accompanied by various members of the Willkommen Collective, her intricate playing coupled with a unique vocal fragility drew comparisons to Björk and Joni Mitchell as well as her friends and co-conspirators Rachael Dadd and Rozi Plain.
Five years and hundreds of live shows later, her live ambitions fed back into the writing and recording process of her second album, Cocoon. The harp, tender vocal and unique take on classic songwriting are still at the core, but the arrangements draw from a much wider and often darker sonic palette – introducing vintage monosynths, drum machines and vibraphone. Gatrill’s circle on Cocoon Emma draws from the joyful experimentation of Juana Molina and the intelligent pop and texturally rich arrangements of Julia Holter and My Brightest Diamond.