Emma Tricca – ‘Autumn’s Fiery Tongue’ from ‘Aspirin Sun’

I am perpetually surprised by the number of things that pass one by when one’s eye wanders away to Something Different. As example, I surely ought to have known about Emma Tricca before stumbling across her ‘Aspirin Sun’ set earlier this year. Had my eye (or ear, or whatever) been more securely focused on the realms of, ah, The Fringes Of Folk Music back in 2009 I would surely have dug her ‘Minor White’ set, whilst 2018’s ‘St Peter’ would certainly have thrilled me with its chilled take on journeys taken through the landscape of fragile folk tales. A duet with Bridget St John this year (the gorgeous ‘Rubies’) shines a light on where Tricca has come from, but’ Aspirin Sun’ itself seems to track another trajectory that explores inner and outer spaces through longer songs hovering somewhere in a netherworld part way between Folk and Prog. Songs balance a brittle spaciousness with a brooding sense of the unknown. Electricity crackles through the dawn and poetry creaks in the darkness. There is a beguiling eeriness here, like stumbling on Francesca Woodman photographs discarded in the forest. An ache of vulnerability slow-dances cheek-to-cheek with a mature confidence throughout the whole and proves to be mesmerisingly rewarding. Eight songs of peculiarly warm bleakness; something to cherish as the world dissolves.