Emma Grace - Stuck (Trovarobato) [Experimental Music]

The Slow Music Movement
1 day ago
2 min read

The cover for Emma Grace's Satellites album, showing Grace in black with closed eyes, hair flowing dramatically in motion, set against a dark, blurred background, creating a dreamy mood.

Emma Grace is an Italian-American composer, vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist. Born in Italy she studied both cello and violin as a child, but developed her musical style through solo improvisation, songwriting and performance, which might go someway to explaining her singular sonic vision where her vocals blend with the, albeit largely repurposed, age old sounds of those classical instruments and decidedly un-Mozart like futuristic electronica. If that wasn't enough Grace also works as a music therapist, specialising in vocal music therapy. She sounds like a character.

Musician Emma Grace in black lies on dry grass, smiling with eyes closed and arms raised. Custom boots and a leg tattoo are visible in the dark setting.

There's also a new album on the way, and judging by this first single teaser it's going to be another genre fluid, boundary nudging affair. A spectral voice floats into the studio to get the track rolling, shortly exorcised back to the spirit world by the arrival of Grace's impressive real world vocal, accompanied by distant yet insistent strings; the neoclassical abstractions providing an uneasy undercurrent for Grace's emotive vocals.

Summoned by the righteous noise, someone stirs the percussion into life - the intermittent strikes soon coalescing into a oddly sedate rhythm that desperately tries to anchor the variously floating, soaring and swirling string and vocal layers that all clamour for attention whilst oddly respecting the others' rights to exist. The intensity slowly but surely builds until oversized horns herald peak drama, and trust me it's quite a sonic maelstrom. And then it's over; Grace left gazing around the studio at the wreckage of the storm - controllers strewn across the floor, broken strings tangled around mic stands and her exhausted face reflected in the now cracked mirror. Time for you to breathe too, you'll probably need your strength for the coming album.

Below is the widely available streaming version that I've tried my best to put into words, but if you want to see how she weaves her magic then tune into the extended, somewhat more refined version of "Stuck" on Youtube.