Emmy The Great

('Sup magazine, February 12, 2009)

Live review

Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

PHOTOS: MARK THOMAS

The chill is battering down the door in Cardiff's Welsh club, so the assembled performers really have plenty of defrosting work to be getting on with.

Cue the support. In a warming moment of audience engagement, a baby-faced boy with a guitar almost the size of himself steps up to the microphone with a supremely embarrassed look on his face. The crowd hushes ever-so-slightly and there comes a hint of a murmur, "Hello", before the band launch straight into guitar-drenched indie.

Welcome to the stage, Exlovers.

There's not a hint of declaring themselves, or announcing their name. Note to support acts: you're trying to raise your profile, so make sure people know who you are. It helps when they want to buy your record.

From that inauspicious start, the London quintet with shades of Belle & Sebastian are off, and it would be churlish to suggest that the crystal-clear chiming Smithsian guitars and sweet boy-girl vocals are anything other than blissful, tuneful perfection. It's just the presentation that needs some work.
Thanks are due to Exlovers, though, as the mood of lost love and melancholy they have created is the perfect precursor to Emmy The Great.

Or who we assume to be Emmy The Great, but who are actually introduced by a self-consciously attractive brown-haired girl as "Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys".

Here the japes start with Emma-Lee Moss, but this is by no means the end.


A clear-eyed, no-nonsense type who comes on stage with a stripey jumper and her jaw set, Emma-Lee plucks up her guitar with such nonchalance, that when the magic starts, it's actually an exquisite shock. Any effort on her part is almost imperceptible, yet the result is mind blowing.
Starting with opener Bad Things Are Coming, We Are Safe, the band's sweet acoustopop flows gently over the assembled fans like a warm breeze.

As well as Emma-Lee's guitar, the anti-folk crusaders boast keyboards and a baby-faced violinist, who plays his instrument in both the sanctioned way and in the manner of a guitar throughout the duration of the show. The honeyed backing vocals he provides complement Hong Kong-born Emma-Lee perfectly.
Inter-song banter takes the form of mild mocking, as Emma-Lee introduces single First Love with "This isn't about Alexandra Burke," a nod to the song's reference to Hallelujah, as she terms it, "the original Leonard Cohen version".

She perkily asks, "Hey, how do you say 'clwb'?", and receives the answer - basically, "club" - before cheekily posing the next query, "So how do you say C-Y-N-T?" - that is, the name one of Cardiff's biggest club nights. The amusing answer has not escaped Emmy, and she is tickled in a childlike way by the inferred rudeness here.

From live favourites to album tracks from the soon-to-be-released First Love, Emmy The Great have the perfect set. Highlight On The Museum Island is touching and heartfelt, while Dylan is bouncy and sweet.

But although the songs are wondrous, there is something special about getting to know this delightful girl through her own observations. At one point, she says that the band were making snowmen this morning - "Well, I made one, the others threw snowballs. They're destructive, I'm creative". The off-the-cuff comment is truer than she can imagine - with her her smooth vocals, quirky lyrics and snappy dialogue, Emma-Lee has created the perfectly warming atmosphere. Let her melt your heart at a venue near you soon.