Emily Antonacci is a singer-songwriter, born and raised in Peoria. Known musically as "emily," her debut EP, "Living Room," comes out Friday.
She and her arranger, Cami Proctor, recently spoke to WCBU's Daniel Musisi about the EP, which like many projects, went through a bit of an evolution.
emily: The EP was originally called "honey," and it had three songs that got substituted out while we were recording. So we started recording in January of 2020. We recorded most of "Melt," which just came out, and then all of "Tokyo," which came out around this time last year.
And then we took a pause. Because we were like, "We don't know what's going on, or if it's safe to be in the studio, like breathing all over each other." And so we took a pause for like, a few months, and then we decided like, okay, like, we're just not going to see many/any other people, except for the people who are going to be in the studio. So we like have less risk of spreading COVID, and we're going to get together and finish this EP.
But in the between times of starting recording and restarting recording is what I wrote those three new songs and put them into the EP, which is very exciting.
And so yeah, six songs, one of which is already out. I would say the main sound palette is ukulele, acoustic guitar, synth, and melodica. Which was a fun little addition that I never would have thought of, unless Cami would have brought it up. So another great reason to have Cami on my team is the addition of the melodica. But yeah, I'm super excited for this EP to be out. It's my first ever multitrack release. I've had three singles so far. It's interesting, and I'm very, very excited.
Music is a fantastic outlet for emotion, and not knowing what to do with that emotion. And so I will write a song usually, starting by like writing a poem or like prose, just a block of text like stream of consciousness, everything I'm feeling and then find chords that I like. aAmelody that I like, and just start picking pieces from what I've written and start putting it into the melody. Then I will make like a voice memo and then I send it over to Cami.
CAMI PROCTOR: First things first, I always listen to it and say "Wow, this slaps," because they always do and they just get ... Emily's songs. They just get better and better.
The Living Room Release Concert Livestream is Friday, April 23, at 6 p.m Stream it here.
Find merch and join the email list at emily's website.
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