Avalon Emerson & The Charm
about the artist
Avalon Emerson loves dance music, but when the time came to make her long-awaited debut album, she didn't want to make another dance record. She wanted to make something whose pleasures would last longer than a twirl or two across the dancefloor. She wanted to make something timeless.
Avalon Emerson & The Charm is an evolution, not an experiment. Created during an extended break from the hectic blur of her life as a touring DJ, the album is an intensely personal — and yes, pop-leaning — statement of intent from an artist who's long looked beyond the club for inspiration.…
MoreAvalon Emerson loves dance music, but when the time came to make her long-awaited debut album, she didn't want to make another dance record. She wanted to make something whose pleasures would last longer than a twirl or two across the dancefloor. She wanted to make something timeless.
Avalon Emerson & The Charm is an evolution, not an experiment. Created during an extended break from the hectic blur of her life as a touring DJ, the album is an intensely personal — and yes, pop-leaning — statement of intent from an artist who's long looked beyond the club for inspiration. It's also the first time that Emerson has put herself, her emotions and, most notably, her voice fully into the spotlight.
Elements of pop have always been visible in her work, but while they once made for cheeky detours during her marathon DJ sets at places like Berghain, they're at the very center of Avalon Emerson & The Charm. Echoing her longstanding love of Arthur Russell, Oppenheimer Analysis, Cocteau Twins, The Magnetic Fields and other artists who work on the fringes of pop, the LP focuses on a new kind of songcraft. Where she once was looking for the perfect beat, she's now more interested in shaping the contours of a timeless pop song — and forging a lasting connection with whoever might be listening.
Having spent her entire career working more or less alone, Emerson purposely sought out a small cast of like-minded artists to help bring the album to life. Chief among them was UK avant-pop savant Bullion, who executive produced the record and, most importantly, shares both Emerson's predilection for shimmering pop melodies and her boundaryless approach to music-making. Working together, they cracked open her head and heart alike, creating a space where she could intimately reflect on the people and places she's loved and left behind.
Set for release on Another Dove — a new label that Emerson has launched alongside AD 93 founder Nic Tasker — Avalon Emerson & The Charm is a deeply lyrical effort. Over the course of the record, she navigates relationships as rocky as the Sonoran desert (first single "Sandrail Silhouette") and reflects on the ethereal nature of intimacy ("Karaoke Song"), but even as the narrative shifts toward meditations on betrayal ("Entombed in Ice") and wayward friends ("Astrology Poisoning"), the music itself exudes an easygoing grace, its soft-focus synth-pop streaked with melancholy but ultimately hopeful that something brighter might reside just around the bend. Faint traces of the dancefloor remain — it's not hard to imagine songs like the plucky "Dreamliner" starting a bedroom dance party or two — but Avalon Emerson & The Charm isn't one for the ravers. It's bound to resonate regardless of whether whoever's listening has ever set foot in the club.