Emma Russack Shares ‘That's Not Free'; About The Girl LP Out August 23 Via Dinosaur City

Acclaimed folk-pop artist Emma Russack (she/her) shares ‘That’s Not Free’, the third and final single from her forthcoming album About the Girl, out Friday, August 23 via Dinosaur City Records.

‘That’s Not Free’ contains the realisation that the impulse to win or prove oneself after the end of a relationship helps no one. “Or even striving to win in any kind of argument or disagreement,” says Russack, “learning that it doesn’t equal freedom.”

When desire loses its direction – with no person or object to pin itself to – it has a strange tendency to turn us toward the past. We find ourselves surveying past infatuations and failed romances. Armed with the knowledge of hindsight, previous entanglements reconfigure and reveal themselves. Sometimes, we become privy to the true nature of our attraction, or learn the patterns that have played out across our romantic lives to which we have been blind. Nothing can be quite as bracing or mortifying.

Emma Russack would know. These reassessments and revelations stretch across About The Girl, her brilliant, searching sixth record, produced by Russack and long-time collaborator John Lee at Phaedra Studios. This is an album about longing’s impossible force, tackling how relationships both muddle and illuminate one’s sense of self. Russack says the record is partly inspired by the dissociations brought on by dating apps. “It’s about the funny experiences that happen when you’re untethered” she says, “I had these awful experiences and encounters, that made me also reflect on my past experiences with different people, romantic or otherwise.”

Often, Russack sings in a daze, trying to grasp the contours of memories that have blurred. But she hauls specificity back with hard-won vigour, pasting details together and creating new constellations of understanding. In the thrall of past experience, Russack’s songwriting reaches new heights; merging plain-spoken disclosures with mordant humour. History’s constant murmur is felt through the record’s spectral, spacious sound, full of elegant harmonies, heavily strummed guitar and ominous synths that reverberate and splutter.

Emma Russack was born in the coastal town of Narooma, NSW. She first gained traction as a teenager, belting out covers of Joy Division and Neil Young on her YouTube channel. Known and loved for beautifully spare, and oftentimes impish, records on loss and devotion, she has spent the past decade performing across Australia and Europe, performing at much-loved local festivals such as Meredith and Meadow, while scoring support slots alongside international touring acts including Julien Baker, Jens Lekman and Bonnie Prince Billy. Her five preceding records were nominated for the prestigious Australian Music Prize, and met with praise from media and radio across Australia, Europe and North America, including The Fader, Rolling Stone Magazine, Guardian Australia, FLOOD Magazine, 3RRR, PBS and double j among others. She has also recorded several duet records with musician Lachlan Denton and plays in the group Snowy Band. She lives in Naarm/Melbourne.

Emma Russack About the Girl

1. About the Girl

2. Everything is Big

3. I Know You Feel It Too

4. In 2001

5. Is It Real?

6. It Makes Sense

7. That’s Not Free

8. Things You Said

9. Time

10. What’s in a Song?

© Scoop Media