Watch Emmy The Great

This girl truly earns her moniker. As Emmy the Great, London-based (by way of Hong Kong) gem Emma-Lee Moss concocts tunes that relish her ability as one of the sharpest writers around. Her power emerges from a rare aptitude to divulge real feelings in a coherent setting. She captivates because of her innate sense of when to drown in self-judgment and afford herself reprieve. And how can you not commend the girl for writing the single most popular song about a pregnancy scare? ("We Almost Had a Baby"). Both ambitious and subsequently accomplished, her outright feminist-tinged anti-folk is full of ease and brash wit. Consumed by twenty-something ennui and the many permutations of heartache, Emma drafts narratives to surround us in a world of saccharine melodies. On the other side of the coin, her poetically obscured lyrics smartly showcase how being a hopeless romantic will soon be the death of her. Listening to Emmy the Great, we see a gorgeous cynicism forming in words and sounds. Her first effort First Love was released in 2009 and recently accompanied by Virtue, released this past summer, an allusion to a fiance that left her for another lady (or religion). Despite this, self-pity is absent from Emmy's music. She reconstructs her reality into something both affecting and disconnected.