Emma Waters, otherwise known as EWAH from EWAH & the Vision of Paradise, has just released an absolutely shimmering solo track ‘Touch The Light’ ahead of the release of her first solo album in fourteen years on 3 December 2024, entitled ‘Paradise’.
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
The track comes with a suitably enthralling video directed and edited by Bree Sanders that evocatively highlights EWAH’s enigmatic and impassioned perfomance in beautiful detail.
The narrative sees EWAH exploring a labyrinthine world, visiting ghosts from
the past dressed in the black and white dresses she wore onstage when starting out as a
solo singer-songwriter in Naarm/Melbourne. The song is a cautionary coming of age
story. Sanders and EWAH have worked together on mini-doco Grove of Giants, Sanders
Director and EWAH screen composer (Sydney Film Fest, Adelaide Film Fest, GRIT).
This is an epic statement from EWAH, one of the most powerful (and indeed, underrated) artists in Australia at the moment. ‘Touch the Light’ is out now.
‘Souvenir’ will be out on 3 December 2024.
‘Souvenir’ is EWAH’s first solo album in fourteen years. It sees a thematic return to the
intimate; part coming of age story, part cautionary tale, part mythmaking. She loses her
way, finds true love and holds close to her young daughter. 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.
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
