Emika’s ‘Haze’ sounds like a mix of Thom Yorke, Burial, Nils Frahm, all swirled together in a colorful yet creamy mix; a blend of her neoclassical descending melodies, signature breathy, female vocals, icey pianos, heavy sub-bass vibrations and layered Hazy beats. Let’s call it Emika’s love-affair with the Future Garage genre.
“I’ve had this sound in my head for many years, this record saved my life” - Emika.
Sat between her life in moving-boxes, wedged between them surrounding her upright piano in an unfurnished empty-sounding room in her in-laws house. Haze was made with voice-memo recordings of her piano and voice on her phone, edited and mixed on her laptop in headphones. Little loops in Ableton, lyrics and sadness and melodies, just like Emika’s real-life in boxes.
The pandemic years made it impossible for Emika to stay in Berlin and continue her Indie-music label business Emika Records. Having been a key member of the Berlin Electronic music scene for 15 years, she chose to uproot herself and her young family (2022), moving South to Schwarzwald aka The Black Forest, not far from the German border with Switzerland and France. Saying about the transition "I could not take the pressure of being a working-mum, with family so far away in South Germany and the UK, we were all alone and made job-less as musicians during that time."
Waiting for the rules to change, observing the damage on the live-music and club scene, determined not to give-up on music, Emika built a new music studio and Emika Records label home together with her husband while continuing to work on Haze. On the rebound from feeling suicidal, rediscoving ‘hope’ like a little light, she began therapy and building Haze beats; “I will never forget how amazing it was to feel colours again, coming out of the blackness, this was the main concept for the artwork of Haze”. (Created by Ozge Cone who has made designs for Erased Tapes and Rival Consoles). During the album creation she became pregnant again, dedicating this album to her son, who she says “is like a present baby, a gift following the dark-times”.
Having lived in Bristol (2004-2009) when Dubstep was growing, collaborating with Pinch (Tectonic) recording music in Jim Barr’s studio (Portishead) and producing records with Horace Andy (Massive Attack), making a record like Haze fits perfectly into Emika’s already solid collection of critically-acclaimed bass-heavy albums.
She’s been sampled by The Weeknd on his debut who said about her “She is sonically out of this world.” and with Thom Yorke as a fan, who said on his BBC6 Music Radio show “I hope she becomes very famous.” Emika is set to gain many new fans with her take on the well-loved Future Garage sound, as well as keeping her long-standing global fan-base of supporters happy with some fresh new music this Spring - many of whom donated money during the pandemic and become Patrons of her work.
“This record is really made for my fans, I just tried to imagine them and make what they would like. I left my Avant-Garde ideas alone for a while and wanted to just enjoy how grateful I was to keep doing music for another year, thanks to my listeners” - Emika.
Emika is set to launch a new event series, inspired by her memories of early Dubstep in the legendary Black Swan venue in Bristol (now closed) she saw her friend Mala play, with one table-lamp, it was all about this new sound, and meditating on the bass-weight. Something she plans to continue in her Haze parties, where each guest will be gifted a little Haze Light with their ticket.
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