And if you don't know, now you know ...
5
By DRobb99
There are so many ways to describe Emily Wells' voice. I've read reviews that said she sounds like a cross between Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart, and still others who say she sounds like Portishead's Beth Gibbons. I like to think Wells' voice sounds like what one imagines a fay in the Arthurian myths would sound like if she were seducing you toward some dark lake. (I say that in a hugely complimentary way.) It's the way her pitch is, the timbre, the echo, the way she adorningly stylizes the drag in her words. It's the way she phrases her lyrics as if she were wrapping them around something. She sings, as much as unfurls, that gorgeous sound around us. It's really quite beautiful and enchanting. Wells is a serious talent, who writes music outside simple genre classification. Just when you think she's alternative, she waxes hip-hop. She melds classical and KORG, toy-echo microphone and ukelele. She's a loop-pedal lover who rips one wickedly soaring violin. Wells creates beats to bob your head to, and pens lyrics odd, insightful and completely her own. Wells' surreal music often feels like a world within itself. It reduces the daily sound around it to something less consequential. That's quite a feat in an age of sound overload -- and I'm so grateful for it.
