Inadvertent Lush season continues hereabouts with some exciting news – the first solo record from Emma Anderson. After Lush split in 1996, it was Anderson who got back into things first, forming Sing-Sing with Lisa O’Neill in 1997 and carrying on for a decade, releasing a couple full-lengths and a variety of extended plays. After disbanding, she laid low until Lush reunited in 2015 for an EP and tour, and then went quiet again after that ended while bandmate Miki Berenyi carried on with a new band and writing career.
Anderson wasn’t spinning her wheels, though. She had begun writing expecting the Lush reunion to have legs:
I thought we were in it for the long term, so some of these songs – or even just parts of them – were actually going to be for Lush. That didn’t happen, so I had these songs and bits of music that I didn’t know what to do with.
Emma Anderson
Lush Co-Founder Emma Anderson Announces Debut Solo Album @ Under The Radar
She began working with producer James Chapman of Maps and also Robin Guthrie of Cocteau Twins, whose participation was contingent on Anderson stepping up to the mic:
He basically said, ‘If you don’t sing, I am not going to do it’, so I decided I would. I am not someone that feels comfortable in the spotlight, so for me to take centre stage, metaphorically speaking, was quite a big leap.
Emma Anderson
Lush Co-Founder Emma Anderson Announces Debut Solo Album @ Under The Radar
The end result is Pearlies, coming on October 20 from Sonic Cathedral. It’s introduced with a lead single and video that comes with a couple reference points you don’t usually hear when discussing one of the forebears of shoegaze:
There is, dare I say it, a kind of funky feel to this one which is probably explained by the fact I was listening to the Michael Kiwanuka album when I first came up with the tune. Serge Gainsbourg was also on my car stereo most of the time I was driving to and from James’ studio in Northamptonshire so I think some of those late-’60s/early-’70s off-kilter funky vibes were seeping into the track when it was being recorded.
Emma Anderson
“Bend The Round” @ Bandcamp
A more familiar name from the era of Lush is Richard Oakes of Suede, who contributes guitar to “Bend The Round” and three other Pearlies tracks. Says Anderson about how he came to appear on the record:
I didn’t know Richard back in the ’90s, but it turned that he was a bit of a Lush fan. I have a part-time day job as a bookkeeper, and I do bits of work for the Suede camp. I got to know him through that and we became friends. I asked if he would play some guitar on the record and, to my delight, he said yes!
Emma Anderson
Lush’s Emma Anderson announces debut solo album, shares “Bend the Round” @ BrooklynVegan
