DMP presents:
Emily Barker
Entry Requirements: 14+ (Under 16's accompanied by an adult)
We are pleased to present award winning singer songwriter Emily Barker as part of our Arts Council England supported shows this summer.
Emily Barker is an award-winning singer-songwriter, best known as the writer and performer of the theme to the BBC’s hugely successful crime drama Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands and collaborations including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae, Marry Waterson and Applewood Road (with whom she released a remarkable album of original songs recorded live around a single microphone, dubbed “flawless” by The Sunday Times) and has written for film, including composing the soundtrack for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen.
Emily Barker’s new album A Dark Murmuration of Words was released on September 4th 2020. Produced by Greg Freeman and recorded at StudiOwz, a converted chapel in the Welsh countryside, A Dark Murmuration of Words takes Barker’s clear, expressive vocals and warm acoustic aesthetic and subtly shifts her sound in the direction of contemporaries such as Laura Marling and Phoebe Bridgers. Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation, delivering a timely exploration of the grand themes of our age through the lens of what it means to return “home.” Throughout the ten songs that make up the album, Barker draws connections between the familial, the local, and the global: a mother sings to her unborn child, asking for its forgiveness on ‘Strange Weather’; ‘When Stars Cannot Be Found’ explores the humbleness and comfort of the night sky when far away from home. Other highlights include the nostalgic ‘Return Me’, ‘The Woman Who Planted Trees’, the gloriously defiant ‘Machine’ and the effortless album closer ‘Sonogram’.
On its release, A Dark Murmuration of Words hit number 1 on the Official Americana Album chart in the UK and has garnered widespread acclaim.
“an album of spare, striking beauty” Mojo ★★★★ “…a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake” UNCUT 8/10 “bold, direct, uncompromising” CLASH “a high-class piece of songwriting and beautifully expressed musicianship” Americana UK 9/10 “irresistibly catchy…an album replete with nooks and crannies, light and shade” The Australian ★★★★★ “an album full of grace and danger” RnR ★★★★★ “One of the most literate and probing folk albums of the year. I really love it.” Ann Powers, NPR Music
Website - https://www.emilybarker.com Facebook - https://facebook.com/emilybarkerhalo Twitter - https://twitter.com/emilybarkerhalo Instagram - https://instagram.com/emilybarkerhalo YouTube - https://youtube.com/emilybarkerhalo Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/artist/25uHIpsCWoj8wEHFOEhbuV
Line Up
Emily Barker is best known as the writer and performer of the award-winning theme to BBC TV’s Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. She has released music as a solo artist as well as with various bands including The Red Clay Halo, Vena Portae and Applewood Road.
She has since gone on to write and record her first feature film soundtrack (for Jake Gavin’s lauded debut feature Hector starring Peter Mullan and Keith Allen), record and release an album of solo versions of her early songs (the UK Americana Album of the Year nominated album The Toerag Sessions) and a collaboration with two Nashville-based singer-songwriters (Applewood Road, a remarkable album of original songs recorded live around a single microphone, dubbed “flawless” by The Sunday Times).
Her forthcoming new album has been recorded at Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis with Grammy winner Matt Ross-Spang (Jason Isbell, Margo Price) and an all star cast of Memphis session players. For Emily’s fans, it will be a new sound; for Emily herself, it’s a return to where her love of music started: far away from Memphis or London, singing her heart out to Aretha Franklin records in her bedroom in sleepy Bridgetown, Western Australia.
‘Emily Barker has a gift for great melodies’ The Guardian
