Multi-dimensional multi-instrumentalist and producer Emma-Jean Thackray releases her extraordinary second album on Gilles Peterson's Brownswood label. Musically and creatively, Weirdo bridges grunge, pop, soul and jazz, channelling George Clinton and Kurt Cobain in the award-winning artist’s powerfully idiosyncratic style. Virtuosic musicality and self-expression is combined with humour in this triumphant exploration of loss, recovery and gratitude.
Playing and recording every instrument, writing, singing, and arranging all of the songs, and producing, recording, and mixing the whole album, alone in her south London flat, Weirdo is
a truly remarkable achievement on every level: compositionally, lyrically and personally. Emma-Jean Thackray: “I’ve made records before where I’m playing, recording and having total control over the entire creation but have always downplayed it. I feel now is the time to talk about it, because this is such a personal record. It’s the essence of who I am.”
Her first EP (Walrus, 2016) was self-released at a time when a wave of successful instrumentalists were emerging. Emma-Jean’s sound, though, always incorporated the widest range of music, from spiritual jazz and funk to Detroit house and techno, northern Bassline and ultra-catchy rock and pop music. In 2018 she released the boundary-defying Ley Lines drawing comparisons with US heavyweights including Madlib.
A regular on BBC6Music, including covering shows for Mary Anne Hobbs, and on Worldwide FM, she’s also become an in-demand DJ, playing dancefloor-destroying sets worldwide. She bridges worlds: directing the London Symphony Orchestra and performing at Glastonbury five times in one year. In 2019 Jazz FM nominated her as their Breakthrough Act of the Year. Two years later she won the public vote for Act of the Year, and in 2022 Yellow was awarded Album of The Year.
The story of her second album, Weirdo, began as she was finishing her 2021 debut Yellow (“transportive,” NME) when she sketched out five tracks that appear on this phenomenal follow-up. And then it began again, in summer 2023, as a practical and creative way of emerging from six months deep in the abyss of bereavement. Exploring and celebrating the isolation of being different – the titular weirdo – and nurtured by the life-shaping weight of loss, it is both acutely individual and powerfully universal.
Emma-Jean: “Weirdo started as an acceptance record, about being neurodivergent and understanding the complexities of my mental health. It became about grief. Do these two things come together into one world, one phrase? I think they do. This is a record about survival.”
An artist’s life will always appear in their work, meaning that the lines between public and personal can become blurred. Given the centrality of grief to this record it is sensible to say that Weirdo became a way of processing trauma, specifically the death of her long-term partner who died suddenly and unexpectedly from natural causes in January 2023. “Initially the album was a way to process and accept my own mental health issues. It then turned into a grief diary and inevitably, my form of therapy. In many ways, making Weirdo saved my life. I want the music to resonate with others who might be going through similar experiences, to let them know that there’s a way through it all, and that it’s OK to express whatever’s on your mind.”
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