Emily Yacina at Treefort Music Fest 2026
From her latest album Veifall to facilitating conversations in death cafes, Emily Yacina is constantly figuring out ways to make life less isolating. The present is all there is. So how come it can be so hard to be vulnerable, when the very thing that allows you to connect with others may come at a cost to yourself?
Emily talks about the puzzle of loving people deeply and still pulling away. About songs that sat in a pile for five years before they knew what they were. About losing friends young, and deciding the only answer was to make a room where death could be spoken out loud.
This is episode three of our Treefort Music Fest 2026 docuseries.
Absent Sounds: What does vulnerability usually look like to you? In what moments do you feel vulnerable?
Emily Yacina: I definitely have a hard time opening up to people, which is something I'm learning more about myself, especially in relationships. I feel scared to be seen. I think that's a really cool way that music helps me.
Absent Sounds: Was that something you noticed when you were in a relationship, or something you knew about yourself before?
Emily Yacina: I think I've always sort of noticed it. I went on a quest to figure out where those tendencies came from. I was talking to my mom, probably about eight months ago now. She told me that when I was a baby I would push her away when she tried to hold me.
Absent Sounds: Avoid.
Emily Yacina: Yeah. A real avoidant thing. Which is so strange because I love people and I love relationships so much. It's been this puzzle I've been really exploring, trying to figure out why I'm that way.
Absent Sounds: With the recent record, do you feel like you've come closer to answering that?
Emily Yacina: I think so. That was a major theme and point of exploration with this record. I don't know if I necessarily have an answer. But I think at this point I'm like: it can be really uncomfortable, but it's worth it to allow yourself to be seen. That's where I'm at.
Absent Sounds: I was listening to an interview with Dominique Fils-Aimé, and she was talking about how when you're doing a circle, you never actually go back to the same point. Even if your life feels circular, you're always a few centimeters further out. Constantly expanding. So thinking about when you started working on the album versus now, even just playing it for other people — is there anything you notice about that shift?
Emily Yacina: Definitely. I worked for a really long time on this record. Some songs on there are at this point five years old. There were a bunch of different relationships and experiences that went into what I was writing about. And it's funny, all the overlaps in themes that come up, despite them being different experiences. Which I think is the patterns.
Absent Sounds: Having such a prolonged time of research also makes it hard to know when to stop. What was that process like, deciding this is the album?
Emily Yacina: Once we got all the songs to a place where they were each speaking for themselves, and I felt like each one was embodying its own space, I felt like, okay, we're wrapping it up. But now it's hard not to be writing. I'm already working on new demos. What else do I write about?
Absent Sounds: I wanted to ask about the death cafes.
Emily Yacina: Yeah. I have some personal experiences with grief. I was 19 when I lost a really good friend for the first time. It was super isolating, being so young. My first year of college. Along with being isolating, it was extremely formative. It totally changed the way I approach life itself. Then a few years went by and I lost another friend. And that experience, instead of feeling as isolating, was almost a moment where I was like: oh, this is actually going to continue to happen. We will all be touched by grief. More people will pass away and we will all die. And how come no one's talking about it? It's the truest thing. So I got really interested in alternative death care and took a death doula course called Going with Grace. Through that I discovered Death Cafes, which is a very free-form thing. Strangers meeting up with no agenda, with the intention of talking about death. It's really healing because it's a bunch of random people in a room, and there are always overlaps in what people's experiences are. It makes it feel less isolating. That's kind of the point.
Absent Sounds: What does the awareness of death do for how you're living right now?
Emily Yacina: A lot of people share this sentiment in the death cafes. The awareness of death, and just knowing that's going to happen, and reminding myself of that very often, has made me more alive and more engaged with life. In relationships, in friendships. I really prioritize having fun. Because I can't imagine regretting that on my deathbed. Having too much fun is never going to be the thing.
Absent Sounds: What keeps you going? You've mentioned curiosity before.
Emily Yacina: I think of curiosity as the alternate version of fear. A lot of decisions can be coming from a fearful place without you even being aware of it. I try to be aware of that. When I'm feeling heavy or stuck, I try to reframe it as curiosity. Instead of being scared about something, what if I was curious? What could happen? What is this feeling telling me? It feels so much lighter than feeling stuck.
Absent Sounds: What question do you feel yourself leading toward right now that's unanswered?
Emily Yacina: I still feel a little trapped in the mindset of the last record. The fear of being seen. Really digging into where that comes from. It feels like an endless quest at this point. But all there is to do is make stuff about it.
