Acclaimed producer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Emma-Jean Thackray discusses her newly-announced sophomore album, Weirdo.
From the west of Yorkshire to one of the most significant names in UK music, Emma-Jean Thackray’s quality can’t help but shine through. As she prepares to release her sophomore album, the newly-announced Weirdo, the multi-disciplinarian finds herself flourishing within a new musical chapter as a signee of Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings imprint.
She sounds more purposeful and musically progressive than ever on teaser single, “Wanna Die”, the winning album-launching new cut that comes accompanied by a slick and playful Gilles-featuring self-directed music video. Traversing the idea of genre singularity, there’s colours of vibrant pop and groovy p-funk, intricate jazz and dusty soul on the potent offering, with Thackray’s confessional, crisp lyrical showing a sign of her ever-distilling artistry.
Wonderland talk to Thackray about the core of her musicality, the creative process of her new record, and the impact of Gilles Peterson on her and on the wider industry.
Watch to visuals for ”Wanna Die”…
Read the interview…
Hey! How are you? How was your 2024?
Most of this year has been me locked in a room on my own. I shut myself away in my studio from summer 2023 and I’ve very occasionally put on clothes to venture outside, but mostly I’ve been making music and in my own little world. These days I talk to myself quite a lot more than I used to, so maybe that answers your question.
Talk us through your musical origins—what are your early music memories? How do you first begin a career in music?
I was in so many orchestras and bands from age 8. I got into the devil’s music (jazz) as a teen. I went at a couple of different UK conservatoires studying jazz trumpet and voice, and then jazz composition and conducting. So a classical music education in some ways, but unconventional in others as I grew up in a low-income house in Yorkshire. My origins were self-motivated, teaching myself various instruments and buying bargain-bin CDs with pocket money. Writing music from age 13 on my Argos guitar and the family computer. That drive has always been there and I’ve only ever wanted to be an artist. I first said that to my parents as a toddler.
Talk us through the core of your sonic approach? What is your essence as an artist? What is the Emma-Jean melting pot?
My music encompasses so many different genres, really. It’s not jazz in the traditional sense at all, but the foundations are rooted in it, but there’s soul, grunge, pop, hiphop, so many artists I love have flavoured it, so many sound worlds that make it up. My music is its own universe, and at the centre of it all is me. I span all these different styles but it still sounds singularly me – I’m the genre. The core of it is jazz harmony but always groovy, singable. It balances mad shit and melodic clarity. There’s something in it for everyone, I think.
How do you reflect on your career and discography to date?
I don’t, really. It’s all about what I’m making now. I get so absorbed in it and hyper-focussed that I can’t think of anything else. I forget to eat, drink, sleep, all that stuff. I love my past projects for what they were, and I genuinely treasure that they mean a lot to people, but for me I don’t really think of them. There’s only the current project in my head.
In what ways has your sound grown and altered since your debut album, 2021’s Yellow?
It’s way more personal. My previous stuff was quite outward looking, or if it was inward it was hidden and less obvious. Until I made a weird punky free-jazz EP called “Talking Therapy Ensemble”. Since then I make stuff that’s cathartic for me and tbh, a scarily level of vulnerable. My vocals are more the focus now and I’m playing more guitar than ever before, too. It’s been a lot of fun.
You’ve just announced your sophomore album. First of all, congratulations! How are you feeling about the release?
Thank you! I’m frustrated, honestly. I mean, proud and excited and all that, but 51% of me is frustrated. Releasing something takes a long time and I want everyone to hear the new music. My last album was in 2021 and I’ve changed so much as an artist, but everyone still thinks I’m that version of myself. It’s difficult – to have grown so much but no-one to know what you know. The best way to describe it is like going to visit your parents for the week and them treating you like your 16 year old self, and to not feel seen as your older, wiser, full self.
Why have you decided to coin it, Weirdo?
Because I’m a weirdo. I was called that a lot as a child, but it was a moniker where I wasn’t afforded the privilege of choice. I grew up as an outsider, never fitting in, always feeling like an outcast. I still feel that now as an adult but I feel more comfortable with it. I feel more comfortable calling myself a weirdo, and hopefully the weirdos listening to my music feel a bit more accepted, too.
Talk us through the creative process of the album?
It was very singular and uncompromising. I wrote everything, I performed every note on every instrument, I recorded it, I produced it, and I mixed it too. Apart from a couple of wonderful features, no-one else has touched this record at all. It’s just me. It was isolating, but I needed it to be. It’s not the first time I’ve done every single thing on a release, but it’s the first time I’m talking about it because it’s such a personal record. I needed it to be just me, to get me out of bed.
What inspired the work: sonically, thematically and culturally?
Sonically it’s like if Kurt Cobain, Steely Dan, and Radiohead all rented a cabin in the woods, and they went a bit mad and listened to a lot of Herbie Hancock and Hole and Steve Lacy and and Kate Bush, and then made a record. Emotionally it was therapy for me. It started as an acceptance record for my various mental health struggles and turned into a grief diary after I lost my long term partner. Ultimately it’s about survival. Making this record saved my life.
The album will be released via Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings label. How did you get involved with Gilles, and how do you measure his significance on the UK music industry?
I’ve known Gilles for a long time and he’s very important to me. He’s always been very supportive and a loud champion of what I do. He’s inspired me so much. On the radio he’s introduced me to so much music, and on the dance floor he’s created loving environments that hold some of my favourite memories. I don’t know anyone else in the world that’s as excited about music as he is; he has an endless energy for hearing new things and it’s so infectious to be around. His knowledge is deep. His heart is deep. The UK and the world as a whole owe a lot of gratitude to him. Music would look very different without his contributions.
You’ve also shared the single “Wanna Die”. Talk us through the making and meaning of that specific offering?
It’s up-beat, with a driving drum machine, lush synths, pop-punk guitar riffs, big vocals. Musically it’s full of energy and humour, and that balances out the darkness of the words. Lyrically I approached the record in a diary-like way. I’m being very honest, sometimes bleak, sometimes funny. The music and words are so personal; making the record was my therapy and way of processing trauma and pain. Sometimes the diary entries are seemingly every day, about making food, and sometimes it’s something a bit darker like “I don’t want to die, except for all the times I do.”
The video for the new single is self-directed. How did you translate the music into a visual entity?
That’s what I’m doing all the time in my head anyway. I see creativity as a whole. I love to draw, paint, cook, write poetry, take photos, blahblahblah. So although music is my main driver, there’s always a full universe in my head. Each time I record an instrument I’m a different character, and I put that into the video with the different band members. All the visuals for the record are plucked from the depths of my head to show everyone the world that’s going on inside. Well, as much of it as I can show you.
Outside of the album, what can we expect from you this year?
Some touring, for sure. I haven’t toured in a couple of years and I’m really excited to get back out on stage. The music always evolves live on stage, different versions, lots of improvisation – every single show is different. Touring is wonderful and tiring and fun and awful and expensive and life-giving and all the things. I need to get back to performing live, it’s my roots, and for a record his personal, I need to look the listeners in the eye.