Emma Waters, otherwise known as EWAH from EWAH & the Vision of Paradise, has just released the album ‘Souvenir’, her first solo album in fourteen years. After years of battling anxiety and bouts of depression, and ultimately procrastination, superstition and pedantry, EWAH says:
…this is the album I kept trying to make for years. For a long time I offered up things that were incomplete, highly abrasive or sounded broken, which perhaps was a true representation of my tendency to intense self-doubt and self-destruction. In time as I slowly put the pieces of my life back together the music too began to reflect that positive change.
Of the title, EWAH says:
Souvenir means “memory” in French or in English is a memento to remind you of a person or place. Souvenir tells personal stories from the past and present.
‘Souvenir’ is a luminescent tour de force – deeply personal and at times raw but always authentic with scaling choruses and sparkling instrumentation, showcasing EWAH’s velvet sanguine vocals and indelible melodies. The crystalline production literally massages the ears, crisp and precise capturing open cinematic spaces like a sonic snapshot of the universe.
EWAH’s vocals are close and intimate at times as if we are privy to her very thoughts in a narrated documentary inside her brain. Indeed the album seems to follow a narrative – from doubt, insecurity, vulnerability and apprehension to a resolution, a sense of optimism, and a redemption.
Opening track ‘Walking On Water’ has an almost nursery rhyme quality to it with the tinkling keys and the dappling guitars, circular melodies and haunting backing vocals, the motorik beat. It is a paean to resilience and determination over anxiety and self-doubt, driven by a powerful love:
Standing on a cliff ledge
Looking out over the water
I can just about stand myself
Holding onto my daughter
And soon it’ll be Christmas Day
It is a delicate, powerful track that is a fitting introduction to the themes threading throughout. As with strength and resilience, the music slowly increases in intensity, building up to a crescendo that is thrilling.
Powerful thundering drums introduce ‘Running Away’ with an enigmatic, indelible guitar riff and EWAH’s reflective vocals almost back in the mix. This is an anthem that Springsteen would be proud of – haunting and statuesque, a majestic quietness to it as EWAH sings of a quest for something unknown and intangible. The song ominously ends with a cacophony of sounds: an uncertain ending to the quest before a calm reprise, a resolution.
In ‘Touch the Light’, EWAH’s powerful vocals channels greats like Kim Gordon or Sharon Van Etten, over a driving cinematic instrumentation that positively shimmers and sparkles like the constellations in the southern skies over the expansive Tasmanian wilderness. It is a joyous anthemic track, statuesque and imperious, heartbreakingly beautiful and majestic.
The track touches on issues of personal resilience and empowerment – being proud and bold and fighting through self-doubt and anxiety:
When I found my feet in two oh one four
Things were so different than they were before
And now when I step out onto the dance floor
Out of time I don’t care anymore
In ‘Mountain Song’, EWAH evocatively reminisces about the distant past over dappling instrumentation that emphasises the air of nostalgia, delicate harmonies adding a filigree of light. ‘Halfway’ with its sweeping strings and ringing guitars and roaming bass is a dream-like episode, EWAH channeling Dusty Springfield or Charlotte Gainsbourg with her breathy vocals, hypnotic and ethereal.
‘Under Fog and Snow’ enters like a Velvet Undergound or Jesus and Mary Chain barbed-wire pop anthem with its pounding, driving drums and sixties vibe. EWAH’s vocals are at their very best: exhibiting an extraordinary range, passionate and vital.
‘Let Love In’ is a resolution to the travails and insecurities – a hint of optimism delivered through a breathy melancholia:
I’m calling the light
I want to let summer in
Pulling the shades aside
I want to let summer in
The appearance under the mix of a synth aquatic bubble adds a mysterious element to the track.
‘Waking Up Is Easy’ is the ultimate resolution of the album – the sun breaking through the clouds with the power of love and redemption:
I was waiting for that feeling
Waiting for someone like you
Waiting for that warm summer love
The track is heartbreakingly beautiful in its clarity and ethereal delivery, EWAH’s vocals thrilling and poised.
‘Souvenir’ is a beautiful album that positively shimmers with an incandescent light.
‘Souvenir’ is out now and available to download and stream through the link above and here.
The album includes contributions from a veritable who’s who of local Tasmanian artists – all brilliant musicians in their own right and featured here in Backseat Mafia.
The album was co-produced by EWAH alongside engineer and mixer Jethro Pickett, a talented musician in his own right (notably The AMP longlisted album France, 2018). The songs embrace traditional songwriting, inspired by 60s and 70s pop, blurring the edges with foggy psychedelia and modernised with a hybrid of live drums and electro beats.
As well as sitting behind the desk Pickett plays organ, piano and lapsteel on the album. Other guest musicians are Sorin Vanzino (Tinderboxers, Chris Coleman and The Great Escape) on drums and percussion and Stuart Hollingsworth (EWAH & The Vision of Paradise, SPACE.TIME, Chris Coleman) on bass.
Feature Photograph: Emma Waters
