Emily Jane White - Victorian America

Double gatefold vinyl

Emily Jane White was raised in Fort Bragg, California, a seaside town nestled in the misty, secluded woodland of the Mendocino Coast where old men tell stories about logging and young girls dream of San Francisco. Time moves slowly in Fort Bragg, where in place of big-city sharp shocks of excitement there stretches one drawn-out, stable truth, quiet and unflinching. You will live, Fort Bragg says, and then you will also assuredly die. Though Emily Jane White's newest album, "Victorian America", was written largely in San Francisco and Oakland, the atmosphere of her upbringing permeates her songs. This pensive feeling was established with White's first album, " Dark Undercoat", which critics and fans alike called a masterpiece; White herself is more inclined to call it a bare set of sketches. The easy majesty from some of the Bay Area's best players is evident from the first track, "Never Dead", on the intro the unconventional song structure of "Stairs". White's ethereal conjuring glides the listener through bright lights and high waters of the little track, a lament for lost hopes backed by a sublime string arrangement, and White holds poetically to the Poe tradition with the seven-minute opus "The Ravens".

With positive coverage in Spin and Rolling Stone and with a large European fan base - the reward of near-constant touring - Emily Jane White is the newcomer to watch this year. "Victorian America", like the country it is banned for, is not an album that rests easy, nor does it exist for the sake of existing. From beginning to end, this is new mystic American songwriting at it finest.

Be the first to review this record. Best reviewer each month gets £10 off their next order!