Live Review

EMA – Scala, London

• 17th May 2012

It took a brave soul to venture out into the teeming drought on Tuesday evening, and perhaps an even braver one to place themselves in the direct path of EMA’s bold, emotion-laden sound at London’s Scala.

But a performance by EMA – the US’s Erika M Anderson – rewards the brave. Over and again this strong young woman never fails to impress with the quality and intensity of her live performance, prowling feline and graceful around the stage like a caged animal and belting out her powerful tunes with controlled abandon.

“Maybe I don’t need worry about singing in tune, being alt-girl-punk and all,” she quips self-deprecatingly, as she prepares to cover ‘Cherylee’ by her former band Gown with aching beauty. And, of course, in tune – Anderson, despite careening around the stage amid waves of feedback, wrapping herself in fairy lights, and winding her mike cord perilously tight around her neck, controls her voice with a mastery that’s surprising, given the spontaneous feel of her stage antics. Performing the ‘The Grey Ship’, her vocals move from whispery, gentle singing and build up to a shouting crescendo without once moving out of key or losing their rich timbre.

Debut album ‘Past Life Martyred Saints’ transfers well to stage, varied and interesting as it is. On this tour, EMA has been supported by drums, guitar and electric violin/keyboards, freeing her up to perform, and it works. As a band, EMA & Co are capable of producing a wall of frenetic sound, full of artfully controlled wails, fuzzyness and screeches, that fairly knocks you off your feet. Interludes of soft, sweet musicality give you a chance to recover, while the vulnerability of some of Anderson’s lyrics and her low-key interaction with the crowd show this panther-like woman is also a bit of a pussycat.

What’s striking about an EMA performance, and what makes it so damn entertaining, is the mischievous playfulness that weaves it’s way through the anger and angst, lifting the experience from the darkly harrowing and making it downright enjoyable. While her album feels like an exorcism of demons, when taking it live we get the feeling Anderson knows it’s time to let go and have a bit of fun.

Garbage’s Shirley Manson lamented the lack of “gobby, alternative women with guitars on the radio” in an interview I read (rather fittingly) on the way to the gig. EMA, with her intelligent, ecstatic and sensitive take on rock, goes a long way towards filling that gap. This gig was her “last for a while” she told us – hopefully that points to some time in the studio, and plenty more gobby, alternative stuff to come.