“Songs which do not hide their classical or experimental underpinnings but present them to the listener as things to be approached with curiosity.” So we wrote of The Carillion Towers by Em Spel back in 2022. The debut album of Chicago-based songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Emma Hospelhorn used Richard Powers’s arboreal novel The Overstory as a jumping off point to explore interconnection in all its guises. With Hospelhorn drawing on a background in avant-classical group Ensemble Dal Niente and calling on a number of collaborators, the result was an ambitious, intricate brand of chamber folk able to match such grand themes.
Standalone single ‘My Oldest Friend‘ furthered the style, and now Em Spel is gearing up to release brand new full-length Bird or Snake this spring via Birdwatcher Records. Lead single ‘Geographic’ might have the same invention and depth of The Carillion Towers, and even some similar ideas around interconnection, but in place of the organic imagery is something altogether more modern and synthetic. An exploration of being plugged into the contemporary world in all its overwhelming chaos, where every page is trying to sell you something, every scrap of data repurposed and sold in the name of understanding your desires. “Sometimes a song fragment writes itself and gets stuck in your head,” Hospelhorn explains. “That’s what happened to me with Geographic—something about that opening cadence grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. There’s the concept of a “digital world” that existed five, ten years ago, and then there’s whatever we have now. This is a song for everyone who is constantly bombarded by ads, by algorithms, by a million screens vying for your attention.”
Art by Jessica Roberts