The Saga of my Debut Album, Chapter 1

Each week in the lead-up to my album release, I am sharing a chapter of its story.

To mark the upcoming release of my debut album All Those Things I Thought I Knew, I have delved into my memories and old diaries to share the story behind the six-year writing and recording process.

Chapter one covers the year of 2017 and key moments leading up to it. If you enjoy any of this, please consider subscribing to the newsletter so you can be the first to know about new music and announcements.

It was only meant to take a few months

The year was 2017. I was 23 and naive in the way that any of us would consider ourselves to be if we looked back on the people we were just yesterday. 

In the lyrics to a song on All Those Things I Thought I Knew called “New Construction”, I claim to be simultaneously green and seen more than I should have seen. I feel this describes me perfectly - both then, now and perhaps always. 

On the one hand, I was a regular 23-year-old. Full of ambition, hope and a certainty that I would get to where I wanted to be as long as I worked hard enough. But on the other hand, I had emerged from an unconventional teenage life without even beginning to realise the ways in which it had affected me. 

Sometimes I get bored of referencing those years. I fear it will read as a sob story or give the impression that it is my entire identity - something that I dine off and market myself around. That somehow it will imply that I am asking for people to give me a round of applause for just being here. But the annoying and undeniable fact is that it is a big part of my life, and often influences the art I create. So it would be weird not to mention it.

Somewhere along the line, the universe decided that I wasn’t going to be a well person. My main afflictions are M.E. and OCD - although anyone with a chronic illness knows that new diagnoses can come along and original ones can alter over time so I can’t guarantee this won’t change in the future! 

The journey towards those diagnoses involved a lot of medical discrimination, shoddy advice, admin errors and crying in pokey little underfunded rooms, but also equal amounts of kindness, support, belief and persistence. By the time 2017 rolled around, I had met and been inspired by some incredible people. I had learnt how to be creative in achieving my goals. How to advocate for myself. How to look after my wellbeing (even though I didn’t always listen to my own advice) and how to focus on the things I could do rather than the things I couldn’t. However, I had also experienced the loss of friends, the future I thought I knew and the person I was going to be. I had known what it felt like to fear both being alive and dying in equal, terrifying measures.  

The ‘green’ part of me emerged from the gaps in my education and social experiences. I couldn’t cope with school, and ended up leaving at 14 to attend an outpatient classroom at the hospital instead to study for two GCSEs, which were later accompanied by a distance learning A-level. I had also missed out on several rites of passage, from proms to clubbing at weekends to first holidays away. I certainly wasn’t streetwise in many ways, but through my other experiences, I always felt emotionally mature. Almost weathered, in fact. I often found it easier to hold conversations with older adults than people of my own age, whom I felt I had to pretend around or mould myself to try and fit in with. 

It would also be strange to start this story without first giving some background into the reasons how and why I ended up as emzae.

I had always known, from the youngest of ages, that I wanted to have a career in music. Though my confidence and sense of self worth had taken a massive hit during those secondary school years, I spent almost every day doing something related to music. Whether it was studying my favourite artists, teaching myself to sing or play instruments, messing around on free software or just writing lyrics, I was always committed to the future version of myself who would potentially feel able to share my creations with the world.

It occupied my daydreams and my conversations with friends. One particular conversation on MSN back in 2009 witnessed the coining of my stage name. I made so many pieces of cheesy artwork splashed with the words emzae in massive letters, and dreamt of one day being able to hold an album in my hands and perform it to an audience.

It wasn’t until 2014 - the year I got diagnosed with OCD after a particularly tough period of mental illness - that I finally started uploading demos online. Somewhat of a blessing in disguise in hindsight, that landmark year in my life both helped me to understand and look after myself going forwards, and also provided me with a window of nothing-to-lose mentality which saw me create a soundcloud profile I might never have found the courage to create otherwise.

I used it almost as an audio diary, making explorations into my early sound. I sometimes miss those care-free days of making demos in the space of a few hours after work and then chucking them online. At first, these would mostly be recorded on the Argos guitar I got at 17 for Christmas. I wasn’t a gifted guitarist, but listening to the early work of Lana Del Rey under the name May Jailer taught me that things didn’t need to be perfect or technically good to have a charm or an atmosphere to them. Mainly, my guitar served as a necessity to showcase my vocals and lyrics whilst in the background, I continued to teach myself how to make the type of music I release today.

Before “Lucid Dreaming” - which I consider to be my first ‘proper’ single - I had released three main projects which served as stepping stones. The first was Breaking Circles - an acoustic album I decided to make whilst I was taking my first ever prescription of Sertraline. It was very dark and raw - a reflection of where my mind was, and the effects of the medicine on my changing brain. It was a song off this called “I Just Hope You Know” which was the first to get played on BBC Introducing. A couple of months afterwards, I hurriedly made an EP called Nightdreamer, which was an attempt to ensure that those following me knew I wasn’t only an acoustic artist and that I hoped to experiment with genres going forwards.

During those years, I had only intended to be an online artist dropping demo projects and hoping that some record label somewhere would come and pluck me out of obscurity and help me to achieve my dreams.

It was around this time that I first met my good friend Simon Waldram, who was a key part of my decision to take a slightly different path. He helped and supported me to start performing my music live, which was a big deal to me. I had vague dreams of one day attending an open mic night - even just as a spectator - but Simon helped me start playing in pubs and small venues. He helped me to believe in myself again, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Next, I had over-ambitious dreams of releasing a concept album about a fictitious popstar. I made it, dodgily mastered it myself and hyped it up on my Facebook page with approximately 2 entire promotional videos (which I remember being terrible) before dropping it on Bandcamp and Spotify. Me and Simon also made cassettes of it for his small label Phase Velocity, which were really cool. It was called Double Life, and it was the biggest flop I’ve ever had. I wasn’t fully in love with it, or the quality of my mixes. I knew I needed to go back to the drawing board and essentially start all over again with the benefit of all I had learnt so far.

This brings us nicely up to January 2017, by which time my personal life had gained some much-needed stability and for the first time I was happy. I was working in a creative job in the city centre, making my way through the contents of Deliveroo and buying sparkly things with disposable income during my lunch breaks.

Chalking my recent flop up to experience, I decided I would start making music that aimed to combine both the raw energy and honesty of my earlier work, with the musical style I was beginning to develop.

I had another grand concept album idea about a world in which we live perpetually inside VR headsets (I get shivers every time someone says the word ‘metaverse’ these days…). But I knew I wasn’t yet capable of making it. I wanted that to be my ‘big’ album. My proper album. And if this sounds confusing, then don’t worry - it confuses me too. But more artists than you think have these stops and starts. Deleted projects, projects they insisted were their debut album then denied the existence of a few years later. It is only recently that I’ve realised how many bands and artists who achieve success are much older than you think (often female artists are told to lie about their age) and have often released music under various different guises beforehand and accrued knowledge and contacts through this.

But back to the VR album. I knew it would take years to complete. Unlike Double Life, I wanted to really drill into the mix in a way I hadn’t attempted previously. I wanted more intricacy and finesse. Most importantly, I wanted it to be considered of a decent enough technical quality to be played on national radio or placed on an editorial playlist. So I had to actually learn how to acquire more intricacy and finesse. 

In the meantime, I decided that I would essentially bang out a filler album, whilst working on the ‘big’ album in the background. And what’s more, I would film myself making it.

I assumed this would only take a few months maximum, and would give me some precious content to market the project with.

This all changed when I wrote “Lucid Dreaming”.

Inspired by trip-hop songs and meditation music, I opened up about how instrumental (no pun intended) music was to my life, and how I wished so badly I could be my authentic self and openly do it for a living.

I had carried mountains of guilt and shame around with me for years over the stress and anxiety my illnesses had caused for those closest to me. When the choice came down to getting a steady job and saving up my money or pursuing music, the latter felt akin to announcing I was running away to the circus. Some sort of slap in the face after all the care and patience they had given me. All I wanted was to prove I could be stable and that for once no one had to worry about me, so I kept music very close to my chest.

“Lucid Dreaming” was the first song I felt proud to share. With the internet, with online blogs and radio stations, with live audiences and with my family and friends. I was emzae sometimes and that was ok.

Suddenly, the ideas started flowing. Maybe this album could be set sonically in the city of Derby, like few albums have been. The songs could include small clips from the video diaries and field recordings from around the city - passing cars, rain storms, nature and the like. Maybe it could be called Small City Girl. I created a folder for it, and eventually it started taking over from ‘the big album’.

It became the big album.

I rounded off 2017 playing to one of my biggest ever audiences at Derby’s Christmas Lights Switch-on - my fingers barely able to feel the strings of my guitar due to the cold - and continued to write and record.

It was a turbulent year for the world, but in my own life, it was a vintage one.

Who knew how many video diaries I would end up making, and where life would take us all over the next 6 years?

To be continued…

P.S. The remaining songs I don’t cringe at from those early projects are available to download at emzae.bandcamp.com.