Emika Vinyl, CD & Tape 4 Artikel

To be released on World Mental Health Day, part of the album’s proceeds will be donated to a UK-based mental health charity. “I often wonder how sadness moves through people,” Emika says, “through time, through stories and history, and if it's something that becomes us rather than coming from us.”

The crossover between electronic music and classical composition has never been in more vibrant and dynamic health. Multifarious musician Emika explores this fertile ground on her ambitious new opus 'Melanfonie': her first orchestral composition, some four years in the making.Funded by a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its target by an impressive €25,000.While many rebel from their classical training never to return to it explicitly, Emika has always been attracted to the potential and freedoms offered by the symphony form. As well as taking inspiration from her electronic music background in composing the music itself, Emika also applied some of production and playback principles from that realm to create a piece whose every element has been carefully considered. Emika is on a quest to try and change what we mean when we talk about ‘classical music’. For her, the magic of the ‘genre’ is about the instruments themselves and more importantly the people who play them; not the restricting traditions and conventions of the classical world itself. I want to change the face of classical music and give it a more honest and real image. It is time we had something other than pomp and circumstance and avant-garde squeaks and pops.”

Resplendent in its simplicity, ‘Forever’ is the sound of Emika boiled down to her steely essence. Gated vocal snippets and haunting synth arpeggios give a nod to early-’90s proto-trance, the arps filtering in and out of focus in tense fashion before unfolding into a dreamy melodic progression ‘Never’ treads similar ground but takes a more direct approach, the tension building consistently in layers as more arpeggiated synths gently modulate in hypnotic fashion Shimmering, icy sounds create a haunting, slow-burning atmosphere before the rhythm switches up for the latter half of the track, layers of gated white noise further punctuating the groove. Emika deftly utilises each element for maximum effect, allowing each to breathe and shine by way of slick production and clever arrangement.