TRACK OF THE DAY : emzae - I Guess, Anyway

I Guess Anyway is the new single from emzae, an emotional song written about her reaction to the end of lockdown and the impact that had on her, taken from her debut album All Those Things I Thought I Knew that comes out in September.

emzae has been releasing music for six years and has her debut album planned for release at the start of September. I Guess, Anyway clocks in at nearly six minutes, in a world where musicians are told that radio wants three minute songs, but it's a song that needs the time to take the listener on its emotional journey through its story. Beautifully understated, the music adds to the impact of the song.

emzae has said about the single - "It was late 2021, and there was so much that I needed to get off my chest. As a person living with a chronic illness, the pandemic had been difficult. But strangely, some of the things that arose as a result of the lockdowns such as the widespread uptake of zoom made me feel more connected to society and closer to my friends. 

When things started opening up again, I felt like I was re-living many of the emotions I felt during the early days of my diagnosis. Watching friends one by one returning to normal life, whilst I couldn’t take the risk yet and didn’t know if I might be isolated forever. It was like we had all been in the same boat, until we weren’t anymore, and I remembered that I was different. More generally, I was also reflecting on how when I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s in the UK (I was born in 1994) it was quite a hopeful time and we were told we could be anything we wanted to be if we put our minds to it. And later we watched people make entire businesses on the internet, and thought the sky was the limit. And I suppose I was thinking, wow. Look at us now! 

For many of us, this isn’t how we thought things would be in our late 20s. And so I wrote about everything I felt over a period of several weeks - just spilt it out onto the pages of my notepad and into my voice memos. And that’s what became I Guess, Anyway"

The single and album are a truly independent venture - writing, recording, production and mixing is all done by emzae herself, something she's incredibly proud of. 

single cover image - Madison Fiorenza

emzae is on Facebook and Twitter.  All Those Things I Thought I Knew can be preordered here.

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