I’ve said before that I believed that Emily Barker’s excellent A Dark Murmuration Of Words was one of the most important albums of 2020. It stands out as a beacon of caution for everything that is going wrong with our world, but it does so beautifully, with conviction, and also with love. To compose such beautiful music, to perform it so well, and to have a cohesive message throughout, would seem like a hard act to follow. Barker seems to have acknowledged that with her reinterpretation of this excellent LP in…
Read MoreVodka has long been a fan of folk singer and songwriter, Emily Barker. Emily’s latest single, Machine, from A Dark Murmuration Of Words (September 4, 2020), and now available as a two-version single, is one of many triumphs from the long player. A Dark Murmuration of Words is one of the most socially conscious records of 2020, and Machine is just one example of that. What’s the point of a great folk song with a powerful message if it is so ho-hum that you don’t want to hear it again? There’s…
Read MoreI’ve been a fan of the folk-pop of Emily Barker for a number of years now. There is always a good story in the lyrics and the melodies are beautiful as is Barker’s voice. This single, a tribute to the Kenyan activist and founder of The Green Belt Movement, is a masterpiece of Emily’s music to date. The Woman Who Planted Trees (seen/heard here) is a beautiful tale of Wangari Maathai’s work in empowering women in local communities in Kenya and beyond. To get an…
Read MoreYou may remember Emily Barker from two mini-reviews in close succession to each other four years ago just before the Dear River long-player was released. Well, Emily Barker has continued to make fine pop-influenced folk music since then with an ever-increasing focus on polishing and fine-tuning her style. Enter her latest long-player, Sweet Kind Of Blue (May 2017), from which Sunrise (seen/heard here) comes and the metamorphoses continue. It’s like a beautiful butterfly that has somehow turned into an even more beautiful butterfly. The title track and opener is almost…
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