Emzae knows, probably better than most people, that your time is very much yours to take advantage of. You don’t want to realise retrospectively that life was “too short to spend it doing things you didn’t like, with people you didn’t like, pretending to be someone you were not”.
The eloquence of Emzae’s ideas is captured deeply within her “unique brand” of electronic pop. Slow tempos, mixed with surprisingly prominent synth drums, give an extra punch to her somewhat confrontational vocals. Her music is definitely her own style, referencing personal stories and ideas, and very naturally avoids lyrical cliché.
Her latest song, Waste Our Time, out on 7th February, is like answering a phone call from a friend who needs to get something off their chest. Straight in with the point, and everybody agreeing to a much more optimistic future.
Her persona’s apparently level-headed, decisive message of Waste Our Time — that she is fed up with a culture of superficiality, even within intimate relationships — is perfectly expressed through Emzae’s short, almost curt vocal delivery. Her attempt to hide the frustration that motivates her isn’t entirely successful: at this tempo, the agitation is exposed beautifully, with a simple chord structure hoping to prop up a facade of calmness that, let’s be honest, we can all see straight through. I liked this a lot.
Whilst I would dispute the accuracy of what the song is actually saying, to point out success stories that contradict its beliefs would be for me to miss the sentiment entirely. Its inspiration is undoubtedly emotional.
It is hard for a musician to write this type of critique into a convincing song lyric without either creating an accidental parody or being altogether too earnest, but Emzae avoids becoming excessively philosophical — or too glib, for that matter — and has judged the delivery well. It’s carefully expressed, but not overthought.
Musically, it’s a strange mix of instrumentation, rhythm, complexity and simplicity, which at times comes across as inconsistent and confused. But in the context of the progression of Emzae’s music, it’s another step forward — not just in production quality and a fuller-sounding, more balanced Eq, but also in focus. Some of her earlier work is dying for variation or development (if not just dropping out repetitive sections entirely); Waste Our Time has too many fragments that struggle to find coherence in a short two-minute timeframe. But she has evidently taken tremendous care over the production, and her music will soon settle down to a beautifully defined and confident style. Her relationship with her music is evidently a sincere and happy one.
Emzae is based around the Midlands, and performs around the UK. Visit emzaemusic.com for updates on her gigs, her wonderful blog, and her latest music.
Listen to Waste Our Time is on Spotify now – https://open.spotify.com/track/4ozr2g4U563L8VlZfin0rj
