Post-war New Yoik meets Moulin Rouge in this sepia-sprinkled midnight daydream.
Following the release of her EP ‘Smoke’ last year, Emberhoney picked up plaudits from credible corners of the industry, with multiple spins on BBC 6 Music, collaborative offers from across the pond in form of a New York stage show and praise from multi-award winning composer, Sir Tim Rice - no mean feat for an independent artist in today’s tough music climate.
Her new single ‘Some Kind of Alchemy’ invokes saturnine reflection and childlike wonder in the same breath, inspiring morbid intrigue as if admiring a beautiful corpse. A façade of charming production soon opens its door to a colder reality of spellbound seduction - illuminated by Emberhoney’s delightfully morose wordplay - which teeters on just the right side of tragic.
“Tiptoe through the tombstones, a graveyard in my head I could grieve forever; the child in me is dead But you give me love to live for, bring me back to life instead”
In the same way Nick Drake was able to project bittersweet angst, this track is also a remorseful affair in the introspective vain of Anthony and the Johnsons or Nick Cave. Opening with a simple arrangement of stony piano keys, the track slowly warms up to a cacophony of rich strings teamed with progressively optimistic vocals, forcing those reluctant ivories no choice but to follow suit.
The accompanying video was Emberhoney’s directorial debut and was inspired by the low-budget aesthetic of 1940s Film Noir with a nod to Tim Burton and obvious inspiration from all things smoky and an era when chain-smoking men wore only sharp double-breasted suits to work.
Just as sweet nectar honey can also make an effective fly trap, Some Kind of Alchemy is an existential juxtaposition of glittering Gloom pop.
Emberhoney plays the Dublin Castle, Camden on the 8th December and will announce a new EP and live dates in 2017. :
