There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss Hong Kong. I left with my wife in August 2014, mere days before the Umbrella Movement really caught fire. After living there for almost three years, the time felt right to leave. The city's a romantic one, and a place that seems forever trapped in time, caught between competing traditions. And, as silly as it might sound, the new Emmy The Great record, April / 月音, feels a tiny bit like the SAR. It makes sense, I guess, since Emmy was born in Hong Kong, but it makes me wonder how much this release will resonate with others who've never been there.
Opener "Mid-Autumn / 月音" conjures up the moods of this season, while the peppy "Dandelions / Liminal" nearly bounces in the manner of peak Aimee Mann. The track is a delight, and one of the more obviously pop ones here on April / 月音, even as "Chang-E" references more explicitly the Mid-Autumn Festival and the time of year around it. It's an elegant, lovely number, and one which blends chamber pop up with a style that's utterly unique to Emmy The Great. Simultaneously light and precisely serious, it's a gem of a composition. Elsewhere, "Your Hallucinations" is sharply observed light rock, close in spirit to Suzanne Vega in her best eras, while "Mary" marries a country twang to the material here.
Even as this music dips easily into elegant chamber pop, or folk-y territory, the entirety here is infused with references to Hong Kong. Sometimes those are explicit ("Hollywood Road", and sometimes the nods are to the people there ("Mary"), but all of this album is a very Hong Kong-inspired release. The light-as-air "Heart Sutra" closes April / 月音 with an effortless sort of wit and playfulness, complete with percussion that sounds like the crosswalk indicators on Hong Kong streets, and this listener felt transported again to that fragrant harbour.
April / 月音 is out on Friday via Bella Union.
More details on Emmy The Great via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: Nononino]