Biography
" Tell them I came, and no one answered. That I kept my word"
From ‘The Listeners’,by Walter de la Mare.
The Listeners is Emma Thorpe - on her own or with her collaborators. And she sings in cinematic detail from a small town on the North Nottinghamshire borders.
Thorpe was born into music – her mother taught her to finger-pick, introducing her to the music of PJ Harvey, Sandy Denny, Susan Vega, Roy Harper and Bob Dylan along the way; Her father Kevin was well respected on the blues scene for his albums with Out Of The Blue; And her aunt managed Welsh psychedelic legends Man.
Despite this heritage Thorpe has shaped her own evocative sound . Sometimes wilfully naive, sometimes considered and precise - her choice of chords is particular and unusual and her finger-picking weaves a strange atmosphere – the likes of which you'd more likely find in a Lynch film or a novel by Bolano than in the sculpted folk of her inspirations. And like those who inspire her - Nick Cave, Patti Smith, William Blake, she loves to muse on nature & religion: God, the devil, good and evil, and like the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood she tries to tell it like it is – to reveal both the beauty and the devastation of life: Red Dust portrays human insignificance under darkening skies; Dinner For One traces the fading past of a destroyed relationship; You wouldn't think that it took years for Thorpe to accept her own arresting voice and lyrical vision. Time well spent in distillation perhaps: This is music that is close to the source. These are songs, born of tradition, alive in the present day, revealing & fragile, excecuted spare and sharp:
“My Heart hangs heavy, a beating drum, your hands around my soft neck”
Walk The Wire
“The Listeners were f****** brilliant last Night…”
Richard Hawley
"Alternately gentle and dramatic….like PJ Harvey pissed off, unplugged and wearing a kaftan.”
Music Mart
“Stirring stuff…like Nico back from the grave for an autumn night's campfire singalong, while their hushed mid-set tracks recall "Ocean of Noise" Arcade Fire.”
This City
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
