If the title is any indication, it looks like Erika M. Anderson a.k.a. EMA is getting all gloomy and existential on her recently announced (!!!) new full-length The Future’s Void. I don’t know if you want to get all Crossfire up in this news section, Erika, but I’d like to ask you to how the future can be so “voidy” if, for example, I know that your new album is going to be released on April 8 via Matador (and April 7 via City Slang in Europe), a date that is by its very definition “in the future.” Chin up, time is not such a scary thing, and we need not worry ourselves too hard about “what it all means” and if everything we do in our day-to-day lives isn’t just a whole bunch of “sound and fury signifying nothing.” After all, we’ve got release dates and tracklistings and YouTube embeds to think about! The future is looking less bleak already.
JK, of course. The future is pretty much nothing but an empty expanse stretching out ahead of us, eternally threatening us until one day it suffocates us in its cold embrace and takes us from the lives we’ve built. Even so, EMA does have a follow-up to 2011’s Past Life Martyred Saints (#31 on TMT’s favorite albums of 2011). Recorded in Portland with the assistance of Leif Shackelford, Anderson says the “structure of these songs” might be her “poppiest yet,” but she also tried “to keep the songs from sounding like advertisements” by sticking with loose first takes, dropping in “spontaneously-recorded ambient sounds,” and periodically whispering “fuck you, McDonalds,” at a barely audible level (#shotsfired am I right?)
If you’re into preemptively filling the seemingly vacant expanse ahead of you, I’d recommend pre-ordering the thing right here. It’s available on CD, LP (on limited-edition lavender vinyl), and cassette. You can also pre-order it through iTunes and get the single “Satellites” (video below) immediately, as well as a bonus track called “Drown.” She’ll also be performing at SXSW this spring, as well as going on a soon-to-be-announced tour once the album is out.
The Future’s Void tracklisting:
01. Satellites
02. So Blonde
03. 3Jane
04. Cthulu
05. Smoulder
06. Neuromancer
07. When She Comes
08. 100 Years
09. Solace
10. Dead Celebrity
• EMA: http://www.thefuturesvoid.net
• Matador: http://www.matadorrecords.com