It’s an altogether too regular an occurrence to hear a track that’s so entirely devoid of substance, yet filled with enough lucidity and adequate style, such substance is rendered futile to the average ear. How often comforting it then can be so hear the opposite: records so utterly confused, insecure and wrong—yet nestle in their heart something truer, something more profound. Because while we revel in the comfort of the easy and immediate, it’s fair to say that those who truly struggle with the constraints of a pop song, and fill it to its edges, can produce some of the most interesting music out there.

Naturally there’s a more than generous element of bullshit in this. And it’s not a case of the wilful obscurantism that fulfils the fantasies of some Decemberists-types, endeavouring to scar something gentle with something progressive. It’s not necessarily “edgy.” Most often the magic is in the somewhat less urgent—in something directly pleasant, but still shaky. Vocal work often hits its highs with its lows at the same time, holds a desperation that’s not hard and absolute, has no sense of security, and is constantly retracting.

Fulfilling these qualities for the purposes of this piece is Emmy the Great, a now intricate part of London’s “hottest subculture’: its apparent acoustic anti-folk scene. Something powerful is wilfully undermined in Emmy’s “Canopies and Grapes”: a beautifully straightforward, pretty-pretty twee song, but one that’s staggeringly unaffected. It’s sorely direct, likely dealing with some post-break up mess, touching on alcoholism and a multitude of atypical British youth touchstones on the way—from S Club 7 to Friends. All the while it’s touching in its honesty, and though overwhelmingly charming it’s always in someway awkward. Though not in any immediately apparent way.

Emmy simply has a great voice—one that just lulls and droops over her guitar, or… soul or something. Singing “I hate the day / It hates me/ So does everybody else” actually feels curiously unassailable. What’s more she can be her most powerful live, as this recording of the wounding “Gloria” suggests. What she really directs is fundamentally basic, but floats her subtle, cutesy intelligent arrangements with a sharp and commanding cynicism. It truly melts my heart.

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