Weajue: hello Emily. You just heard a live session we did with Emily Steinwall here at Met Radio 1280 am in Toronto. today we're also gonna talk a little bit about the record that you have By the time this airs, it will have already been out in the world and it is, but there's beauty in the Fall from Grace.

Emily: Yes.

Weajue: It's such a beautiful title. I wanna start off by getting a little picture of what the album represents, what the title is coming from, where it's speaking from, and give us a little picture of it.

Emily: okay. It's a bit loaded, but I'll do my best. there's beauty in the Fall from Grace.

so one of the songs that I just performed, that's the last line of the song and it kind of came to me. I kind of wrote that song in like one sitting after a couple years of not really doing music. It was like lockdown. And I was like working as a waitress and working as a barista and like just not really writing songs.

And then I wrote that song and it really, that whole song is kind of like the thesis statement of the album in that it's about Like we as a people, as a humanity, for whatever reason and probably the students who study like history and anthropology and so sociology and stuff will have answers to that reason.

But I have noticed we have like a kind of obsession with perfection and with goodness and with like everything being righteous and everything being perfect. And I, I know in myself and in a lot of my friends, it's kind of created this inability to just be in the moment and to really just actually appreciate the beauty that is life itself and to appreciate like.

The beauty of just being kind of from like a spiritual perspective of like suffering and conflict and you know, it's, I really like, was thinking a lot about like just incarnation. Mm-hmm. And like what that means to be like a spiritual being that like came into this body and this body that like, it dies a little every day.

Like we're getting older, we age we're like made of carbon. Carbon, like runs out and decays. And so inherent to the human experience is like this pain Yeah. And suffering. And we can get really caught up on like, dwelling on that and focusing on that. And it kind of, stops our ability to appreciate the beauty of that and the beauty of life itself.

So that's kind of the whole thesis of the album is kind of like almost trying to, you know, see the big picture of things. And see the full like spectrum of human experiences and human emotions and human feelings and stuff. and to really like try to sit in appreciation and gratitude. and I really like the concept of beauty because like we create it.

Because we perceive it. So we create it so we can see like, you know, melancholic art is beautiful and nobody will argue with that. You know, there's so many people who like, love sad songs or sad movies and stuff. And so it's like we do have this capacity to like kind of find beauty and

Weajue: mm-hmm.

Emily: Maybe things that aren't obviously beautiful, you know?

Weajue: Yeah. I love that there's so much depth in everything that you just described. I especially, wanna pick out the idea of beauty. 'cause that's just kind of what you talked about. I've been reading this other man, I'm already forgetting her name. I'll come back to it.

But she was talking about like some of the only things that are really, able, we're able to pin down as humans', like goodness and also beauty, but also because of the fact that it's hard to like tell what's inherently good or like we have our own thwarted this perception of what it is. But beauty I think is something that feels like whether or not we are as humans putting our, imposing our own identity or ideas onto it. It like lives outside of ourselves. Mm-hmm. And it's not, um, something that we shift in our own thoughts. I wanna bring that into the track human anymore because, there's a line where you say that I really, I guess it's kind of one that sticks out most, which is everybody's gone crazy.

And, I think to me, when we're going crazy, I feel like you lose a lot of that picture and you lose a lot of that beauty or the goodness mm-hmm. Or everything that's, that makes life feel not so ephemeral or I don't know. Mm-hmm. I guess, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

Do you find yourself losing touch and going crazy as well? How do you stay away from falling into the craziness of everything?

Emily: I mean, I don't stay, yeah. I go crazy from time to time as any human artist does, you know? Yeah. But, that song was really about the current society we live in.

Like, I really, um, I spent a lot of my life being very cynical. Yeah. And very, like, I'm, I have this very distinct memory from childhood where I just, like, I was at my grandma's house and I couldn't sleep one night and I was like standing in her kitchen in like the middle of the night and there was like, you know, I was full of McDonald's and I'd been watching TV all day and I was like standing under these fluorescent lights and the air smelled like cigarette smoke and I was just like, everything is poison.

Like the whole world is like poison. And I like got so sad and like just felt this like childhood dread of like, yeah. You know? And I think it's hard to look at the world and you see so much like just capitalism being just this endless extraction of humans and nature and it's like really hard to stomach and Yeah.

If you really are like, awake to it all. And, and, that's what I mean by everybody's gone crazy is just, you know, and even like where we are, we're right at like the heart of like where the Eaton Centre is and traffic. Like, it's really palpable downtown and like, you know, I think part of, part of like, uh.

That kind of craziness. And like the song is about like, no one wants to be human. Mm-hmm. Like, they've gone crazy in that. They're like, they're like running away from this humanity. And like I always try to put like a very medicinal like kind of thought and message in my music. And that's also kind of part ties back to the album of like, I really think if people were able to just like appreciate the beauty around them, they wouldn't have this like endless void they need to fill inside of them.

And we would have a lot less like insanity, like as people don't need to like go buy a bunch of fast fashion clothes and new cars and watch TV and

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: Do all these things to just like fill that void. They'd just be like, isn't the sky pretty? I know. You know what I mean?

Weajue: Like, it really does go directly to the overconsumption.

Emily: It, yeah. That's like over, I think there's just a, I think like, so, you know, and everything's like intersectional and complicated, but I think like our, the paradigm we live in, like the, the endless need to fill the void instead of just being okay with the fact that there is a void. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, I think that like can really, You know, not that you can summarise the whole Globe's problems in like one idea, but like, yeah, I, I, I think that is something I see and that's what it, what I was like really talking about when I was like, everybody's gone crazy. Everybody's just like, nobody's talk.

And also, like, you know, as I'm, I'm very happy to be doing interviews like this because, I strive to speak the truth. That's something like I wanna do. And I see a lot of like media where people aren't really allowed to speak the truth. They just kind of have to say like, fluff to be pleasant.

and nobody really stir the pot. Nobody really, and it's like, if you actually were to just be like, what the hell is going on guys? Like, what are we doing here? You know what I mean? Like, what the frick, like I

Weajue: know

Emily: everything's kind of messed up. Like, why are we pretending it's not, why are we just going through the motions

Distract each other from reality, you know, like, so that's what that song's about.

Weajue: Yeah. There is a real fear also, I think when people are around someone who's reminding them that none of this, maybe not none of this matters, but it's like everything, it's all superficial.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: We're gonna die someday.

Yeah. Especially when we're speeding that up. We don't need half of the stuff that we have.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: it's scary to sit with that reality.

Emily: It is, but it also, because you have to Oh, sorry.

Weajue: No, I was gonna say, but it is also kind of, when you are awake to that, it feels like you can appreciate the InBetween space between all of that.

Emily: Totally.

Weajue: part.

Emily: Yeah. And it's like people are a lot of times afraid, to kind of sit in the reality of themselves and to take like accountability and responsibility for like how they, you know, I'm, I, here I am, I have an iPhone. I, I drove here. Like, I'm not like

Weajue: mm-hmm.

Emily: You know, living on a farm somewhere, like a commune, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, I'm not, I'm like in the machine. And so I can't get too nihilistic and hateful about it. Which again is back to the theme of the album is like, you know, like you just gotta accept things. And from that acceptance, you can love things. And from that love, can you actually look at yourself in the mirror and take accountability and do aligned evolution and work rather than just like numb and, you know what I mean?

Yeah. Like, if you like, think everything's messed up to the point where it like bogs you down and makes you depressed, it makes you feel like nothing matters and you don't have an appreciation for the beauty of things you're not gonna do anything worth doing. 'cause it's not from an aligned place. It's from like, you're just gonna manifest more hateful, nihilistic energy and then we're gonna, you know what I mean?

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: But it's like when you sit in like a full picture, like in integrated shadow, integrated light together in the full like experience that is humanity and there from that place of like alignment and like love and beauty. Can you. Move and work in a way that will harmonise that what's around you, you know?

Weajue: Absolutely.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: Yeah. I'll take that down. When you said the duality of the light and shadow to the track, number eight, where there is a light.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Weajue: this is the one track that has a feature, if I'm not wrong.

Emily: Yes.

Weajue: I, really appreciate where this is tucked in the record, but also what did bringing in another voice add to the song that you needed that you couldn't have done without?

Emily: Well, maybe it's wrong to say it's the only song that has a feature.

Weajue: say you have a,

Emily: there's like a collaboration. Yeah, that's true. The whole band is featured, you know, like everybody that contributed to the music, like I couldn't have done it without them.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: And, there's so many amazing musicians on the whole album.

I just shouted out this feature 'cause it's like a solo. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like a saxophone solo. Kirk McDonald who does the saxophone solo on that track was my teacher and mentor from like age 16 to 22

Weajue: We should also say for people who aren't familiar with more of Emily's stuff, you're like an amazing multi-instrumentalist and like,

Emily: yeah, I studied saxophone and then before I started doing like this kind of, whatever I'm doing now.

But, I went to school for saxophone and I was in all these like, youth programmes when I was young and like Kirk was my mentor and so it's just such an honour to like, it feels full circle to bring him onto this song. And he was going through a lot, in his life at the time. and so it was very special to have him like featured on that song.

You know, he's just been such a mentor to me and such a inspiration to me as somebody who just, like, he's put his art with such, he has such a strong integrity, you know, like his, the music he makes is different than the music I make, but the integrity that he creates his music with, like the dedication to his craft, the dedication to being uncompromising.

Not like selling out, so to speak. he's just like so locked in. He, as a student, like he would push me like so hard. like, he has this reputation for being kind of like hard and old school but I loved it and I never found him like mean, and like, he saw that I would rise to if he set the bar high and he would push me to it.

And I think a lot of people don't do that. Like, you know, it is kind of old school that in a way that I really admire and appreciate. So yeah. It's very special to have him

Weajue: mm-hmm.

Emily: Featured on that album.

Weajue: Yeah. I'm really glad that you got to got that opportunity. Yeah. To have him there. at this point in the record, what does light mean?

Emily: Oh yeah. Light is the, you know, that beauty, it's like not, it's not getting swallowed in the ocean. You know, like the, a lot of the imagery in the album is like deep ocean. And like, I love the ocean as a metaphor for life. 'cause it's, it's got calm parts, it's got storms and tsunamis and it's destructive and it can, you can drown and get sucked to the bottom of the ocean or you can sail the seas

So it's like a really, timeless and beautiful metaphor I think for life. But light is like, you know, hope, I wanna say hope, but I was like, I was like reading and reflecting on the idea of hope recently. And I kind of don't love that term. Like it's, it, I don't know, it's got a kind of powerlessness about it 'cause you're just kind like waiting and hoping things will get better.

But it's like, I think like the light's inside of us, you know, we create the light through in the dark 'cause we're like these little generators of energy. We have so much energy, so much capacity as human beings to spread love and, you know, you can smile when things are hard if you're really like, strong enough in that.

And like, so it's not really an external hope. It's more of a like light the shining in your heart, like mm-hmm. To get you through the chaos of life. You know what I mean? Like kind of your lighthouse through the storm of the ocean.

Life will be messed up and you'll have challenges. Nobody will ever not, you know, it's just what part of the contract of coming into a dying body, you know, like that. Like, so you have to kind of like shine your own light and Yeah. That's what that's kind of about.

Weajue: Yeah. Well I really like that track too.

I love, I'm gonna be a little redundant. I love this check 'cause all the entire record is really beautiful. I especially love how you tied it thematically to the previous record you had. For me, sometimes when I'm listening to the records that feel a little heavier, I feel like I give a lot of energy to like pay attention being, be intentional with the way I listen and also not, feel like I'm just bypassing. But at the same time, I imagine someone who's recording it would also have a lot of, um, spend a lot of time being equally intentional and also maybe that can lead you to be wallowing or, you know, feel a little like it's taking a lot of energy for you.

And when you mentioned that we have like a lot of energy in ourselves that we can generate and, not fall into that hole, is there anything that you actively had to do, whether it's while recording this or just in your daily life to, keep you from that?

Emily: Yes, I wallowed

a lot.

Okay. I had a lot of wallowing moments.

This album took so long to make. There were so many challenges. Like it was not a easy flowing process. It was expensive. I kept running out of money and needing to take time. I had the whole thing mixed and then the guy that was mixing it got robbed and we lost everything. I had like all these personal, like two of my grandparents died from when I started recording it to when I, um, to now like, I just like was going through a lot of.

I was also like, kind of depressed. I like had to move home to my mom's house. there was a lot of wallowing, but it was funny 'cause my brother, like the whole time I would, whenever I would complain about anything to do with the album, he'd be like, I don't know. You kind of set yourself up for it.

Like, look at the title of the album. And I really do think that, like, I, I really appreciate you mentioning like, you know, not just being passive and listening. 'cause that, you know, as somebody who like, loves music and loves albums, I like almost exclusively listen to full albums. Yeah. I love, I love, um, you know, I think there is a lot of depth that you can get when you really dig into an album.

And like these timeless albums that I love that are sometimes like 75 years old and I still can like, listen to them and get such deep, deep experiences from them. And I think so much of modern culture is like, not like, especially how we consume music, it's like, does not lend itself to that. And like, this album was like a, a live studio album.

Everything was live everything. Like, it was like not easy. It was not like, I just like made it in my room with my, my computer and a producer and like, you know, like it was, it was a expensive, hard, I had many meltdowns, but I put everything I had into it. And like, the light for me, like, whenever I, whenever I felt like I was gonna give up, it was like, I felt this like inevitability.

Like, it's just like, no, you have like, you have to do this. Like, there's no, like, there's no giving up. Like, I believe in the songs, I believe in the music and I, I try to not put myself too much in the music. Like, I'm like the conduit for the music kind of. And, I do hope that people, you know, like sit on their couch, have a cup of tea and listen to the album.

It's almost an hour long. I hope with all my heart that there's at least a couple of people out there that consume the album that way. 'cause I think then those people will really get it, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. There's not like, it's funny, I'm like, which like seven second clip of this album do I share on social?

You know what I mean? Exactly. And I'm like, that doesn't even make sense for this music. And I didn't even think about that while I was making the music. I thought of the full long arc that I hope like goes into people's bodies and like, you know, changes with their own personal experiences and means something different to them than it does to anything else, anyone else.

You know what I mean? Like

Weajue: Yeah, exactly.

Emily: I do hope people. Feel the depth of it. But yeah, there's beauty in the fall from Grace. I had to fall from Grace in the making this album, and here we are, and I'm really proud of it, and it's done. it was a journey and I learned so much. And in a weird way, that is what the whole album's about and that's what life is all about.

You go through challenges to learn and grow and expand.

Weajue: Mm-hmm.

Emily: If you don't get sucked into them, you know, like,

Weajue: yeah.

Emily: And, I feel like I did learn and grow and expand from making this album. So I hope that kind of like is infused in the energy of the music too

Weajue: Yeah. I mean, from, from, even from my listening, I thought it was really like, it felt palpable to me in a way that, like you're saying, it felt like not everything can be timeless.

Not every track is a single, not every single can be part of a grander record, but I really appreciate the way that this felt like the entire album was, flowing together with purposeful placement of things. which I can imagine might also have been hard to pick out some of the tracks that you're gonna play here for our live session.

Emily: Yeah. I mean, a lot of it is dictated by like, just what I think sounds better as like a solo performance. Mm-hmm. 'cause so much of it is like so epic and orchestral. Yeah.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: So, uh, I tried to choose the ones that could lend themselves to a guitar and a voice and, um, yeah.

Weajue: Well, I like the ones you picked.

Emily: Yeah. Thank

Weajue: One of the ones you did have was, I'm like going so out of order was no one wins a war and am I wrong? Okay. I did that. Sorry.

Emily: that happened.

Weajue: Yes. No one wins a war. And while you were talking about, a lot of what you said also reminded me of something that, I read from Pascal, which is more on the idea that, people who are chasing Congress do it because they don't wanna sit with the futility of our lives, and they don't, you know, when you, the longer you sit in it, the more you realise, like nothing can fill that.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Weajue: and the title here, no One Wins War is so Stark. And I wanna know, first of all if that's a metaphor for the general, like quite literal war, or were you speaking more into a personal, I guess it can be both as well.

Emily: Every, every ring of the like micro, macro, meta, you know, like I really am, like, I believe in everything as energetics, you know.

And like I don't see the point in war. Yeah. On like a global conflict scale. I am very against violence of any kind. I don't like it. It's horrible. And to me, unnecessary. And like you're saying, like it's just people filling, trying to fill this void, trying to find meaning, trying to find an identity and a purpose.

But like, if you were, you know, and then also like in interpersonal relationships, like if you have like conflict in your relationships with people, a lot of that is you just trying to like be seen and be accepted and, and you know, we like create these dramas that are really

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: At the end of the day, just like, can someone love me?

I, because they don't love myself. You know? Like, yeah,

Weajue: I don't wanna be alone.

Emily: I don't wanna be alone. Like, and within ourselves we do that. And I, that song really is about like, I hope it, it means whatever level, whether it's inside yourself in a one-on-one relationship, in a city level society, in a global society, in a spiritual existence.

It, it kind of, any ring of that, like it can mean the same thing of just like, like if you are in conflict, you'll have conflict. If you are in peace, you'll have peace. Like, something I think about a lot is like, like you can't fight for peace.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: You know, you can only be at peace. You can't, there's no fighting that will get peace because you are in the action of fighting.

in that you've created a hierarchy where someone has to be above the other in righteousness or in whatever. And therefore it will never, and even before the fight happened, you can actually be at peace, you know? And from the place of peace and love, can you actually get to a place of peace and love again, whatever level of

Weajue: mm-hmm.

Emily: Experience that is, you know?

Weajue: Yeah. It's like the stasis that you're seeking. Maybe it's not even stasis, but the stillness

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: Is never gonna come from more.

Emily: Exactly. Yeah.

Weajue: I will, take us down to free spirit. Mm-hmm. And then Slow Burn was also like one of my favourites while I was going through it.

but I think it was mainly just because it felt like you had like a story that was also going through for me, when I'm listening to longer songs, I always wonder how much, how much the writer or musician is like fighting the urge to end the song, or like to close it before it extends too long. Or to cut a story short, because I appreciate when you let it go and you let this story, um, evolve and like write out itself without forcing an end to it.

Um, so that's kind of what I wanted to know a little bit about First if, did you feel like you had to give the, I guess, the story of the song of, free spirit? Like a, a closure while you're writing it?

Emily: No.

Weajue: Okay.

Emily: I know. Yeah. I mean, I come from like a jazz saxophone background where I will take like a 12 minute saxophone song.

So I'm like, I'm very into like, like my favourite songs on records are always like the 24 Minute Live version. Like, I love a long song where you can really just get into a vibe for a while. But, no, that song, like, it's so proggy in that like, there's no like hook, like there's no like chorus. It's not just like verse after verse after verse.

Yeah. Like, there's a lot of like different sections with completely different key signatures and completely different arrangements. And I feel like I just, yeah. Like I had like kind of a story I wanted to tell, about like, kind of like, that song's really about like, like a trickster, like it's about like the shadow self.

It's like all themes we kind of touched on, but it's like, it's about like, like there's like a protagonist or whatever who is like, like I'm pure of heart. I'm made of light and love, and like I'm to wait. And then she keeps getting like sucked into this ocean, like in her dreams. Mm-hmm. And this like, dark angel comes and like finds her in the depths of her like dream world.

And to me that's like kind of like a spiritual, like trickster energy. I really like, like Jungian concepts of the shadow self.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: And uh, you know, back to like things we were already touching on, that kind of integration of your shadow that really like being able to sit with yourself and to sit with the parts of yourself you don't want, as part of your identity, you don't want, as part of your ego.

that you're not perfect, that you're not good, that you're not like all these things that we will do everything to run away from facing and we will have wars over it to just try to not face the fact that we're not perfect. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like. And so in this song, it's like, this girl is like, no, like I'm, I'm made of love and light.

Don't pull me down. And then this dark angel's like, no. Like come into the depths of despair. and then she comes out the end like, and then he, the character who's like the trickster archangel or whatever is like, like, you are free. You are whole, you shouldn't fear the dark 'cause it's half of what you are.

Yeah. You are duality, you know, like you are to truly be free, you have to embrace that you aren't perfect.

Weajue: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Because in, it's like, it's like a fricking, like, it's coming out of like our, like colonial Christian patriarchal paradigm to like, think that there's some ideal of holiness we must achieve to be able to enjoy ourselves and to enjoy life and, you know what I mean?

Yeah,

Weajue: yeah. Like,

Emily: it's like very deeply embedded in everybody's psyche and like, yeah. We think we need to like uphold some kind of ideal in order to actually just enjoy life and be free. But it's actually the opposite. It's like when you can accept that you'll never do that. And that it's like a never ending journey to try to achieve perfection.

Then you can really just sit and appreciate like, you know, be at peace, be in appreciation of the beauty of life, you know?

Weajue: Exactly. And won't everything won't feel like it's such a, like I think even in the imagery of like falling into the ocean or like being pulled down feels like it's a consequence of fighting.

Emily: Yeah, exactly.

Weajue: And like when you, when you're able to like, stop searching for the answer all the time, or like, to know, 'cause sometimes I guess for me, for my own self, I know that I always, feel really irritable when I don't know what's wrong and there's something wrong. Mm-hmm. Or like, I'm the thing that's wrong.

Or when you can just like, stop needing to know. Totally. Totally. Like, maybe there's so wrong. I'm like, okay, that's it.

Yeah.

Emily: yeah. 'cause you put your defences down, like when you're trying to like, uphold an image or like, not be wrong.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: Then you, your defences, your back gets up. You know what I mean?

Because you're like, oh, like I gotta be vigilant. Is it me? Is it this? Yeah. I gotta like correct it. But it's like, just like chill, take a breath.

Weajue: Mm-hmm.

Emily: Like, there's no fight. Defensiveness only exists in a fight.

Weajue: Mm.

Emily: When there's opposition. You know what I mean?

It's about like yeah. Like really feeling okay with the chaos that the shadow chaos self that we all that lives inside of us, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Like, 'cause then like I was saying at the beginning, I think. From embracing that. I remember hearing this thing about anxiety and like you can either have anxiety be this gremlin that drives this car, or you can have it just be like a backseat passenger that you maybe listen to.

You maybe don't. And it's like kind of the same with this like spiritual existential doom. It's like, yeah, it's gonna be there. You are just a, a little person in this big world and this big universe, you know? Yeah. So it's like you're gonna feel that kind of like need to fill the void or understand everything or whatever.

But if you can just kind of like be okay with the fact that that's there.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: And that, that's just part of being a human. And then it won't feel like, yeah, you won't be so irritable and like up and down and you know.

Weajue: Mm-hmm.

Emily: And I only say that as someone who does get irritable and up and down.

Weajue: I mean, you gotta takes not takes one to know one

Emily: A little

Weajue: Gotta, yeah. Representing for us.

Emily: But I feel a lot less like that these days. 'cause I'm like, in my thirties, I'm 31. And like there is something to be said about like, it was like as soon as I turned 30, I was like, I don't care about half of this stuff. I used to care about . Like everyone was so right about that.

But like, you know, especially when you're young or when you spend too much time on your phone, comparing yourself to everything and everything that's happening. Like there is this like urgent need to like aha. Like you need to fix the whole world You know what I mean? It was like you literally will just go crazy.

Yeah. And never enjoy a single breath. You know? Like if you try to do that all the time, it's just too hard. It's too much.

Weajue: Exactly. Which is also why I appreciate the record being so long.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: Forces us to sit and

Emily: sit, be present. Yeah. Stew,

Weajue: don't do anything.

These

Emily: feelings. Like have a cup of tea, smoke a doobie.

Like do what you need to do to just like actually be present. Don't look at your phone. Don't have it like on auto play on Spotify, like based on like algorithmic, like songs that sound alike. You know what I mean? You know, that's another way I had to really accept the world as it is. I didn't put my first record on Spotify.

I don't like how. It's funny, this is like a little side tangent, but mm-hmm. I don't know how much time we have left, but, it's, when I was coming up in jazz school and like as a jazz student, it was like pre-social media.

Weajue: Okay.

Emily: There was social media, but it wasn't what it is now. Facebook, it was like Facebook and Instagram existed, but it was like people taking pictures of their food and putting a really heavy filter on it.

Yeah. And it was not what it is now. And I did not film myself practising when I was in college. I did not film myself at Jam Sessions and try to post it to get noticed. I was just present. I was just practising . I was in the moment. I was, and I've really seen the shift in the last decade of this hyper self-awareness that

Weajue: Yes.

Emily: Has been created by everything like having to be, and it's back to capitalism. It's just turning every experience into something to capitalise off of every solo you might take at a jam session mm-hmm. Becomes an opportunity to like have a viral video or something. And then so you start, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And it's like, that's just capitalism. That's just capitalism leaching itself into your everyday moment. And the same thing with how Spotify has changed people's capacity to create music where they don't want to make these 51 minute long like epics. You know, it's hard to do that, but it's, it's rewarding.

But instead, like, the majority of young artists feel this pressure to make something with a hook that's gonna like, get them on the algorithm so that they get lots of streams. Like, who cares if you get a lot of streams? It doesn't actually even mean anything. You know what I mean? Like

Weajue: mm-hmm.

Emily: And I really think, like, I hope that this album, and I hope just like what I stand for as a musician,

Can, if nothing else, like make people a little bit aware of that, like kind of hijacking of the experience of music that we've had where like live musicians are not playing with as much risk because there's a fear of it always being immortalised and captured in like film. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm.

So when you go to a jazz jam session, people aren't like doing risky stuff. They're just trying to play what they know already. Sounds good. And the same with the way people produce records and produce music. Like, there's not as much risk being taken, which I think leads to not as much creative innovation, if everybody's just trying to sound like what the algorithms are already feeding you.

Weajue: Mm-hmm.

Emily: So that they also get on the algorithms. It's like kind of like homogenising, it's like a destruction of culture. It's like a capitalist, like, you know, like it's like taking the music used to live in like local localised scenes all over the world.

And then you would like travel the world and you'd like, oh wow. Like I heard this cool sound in Chicago, and then I went to Berlin and I heard this cool sound there and I went to South America. I heard this cool sound there and then, you know what I mean? And it's like you would, you'd go take like a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and it would make your life so rich and meaningful and you'd, you know, some, yeah.

Some like musician from overseas would come to concert here and you'd be like, wow, that's amazing. and now it's just like everything kind of sounds the same and like what you're being fed is like just more of what you already

Weajue: Exactly.

Emily: Listen to. It's like a weird, like dumbing down of our like depth and capacity in like music experience, you know?

Exactly.

Weajue: I even think that on like a fundamental level, it's shifting what our consciousness is capable

Emily: of. A hundred percent.

Weajue: Which is scary.

Emily: Really, really scary.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: You know, and like. I've spent a lot of time being really stressed out about that. But I'm like, now I'm like, we, you know, if, if you keep it alive in you and I keep it alive in me, we can have this little flame that we protect, like, you know, through the, through the storm that is this like weird, you know, I don't think you can really extinguish humanity from itself.

This is like, but a blip, you know?

Weajue: Exactly.

Emily: And

Weajue: everything else will die out first.

Emily: Everything else will die out first. And the human depth of like emotion and capacity for music and spirituality and experience, like, it's so many hundreds of thousands of years old. And it's like I have a lot of faith in humanity that's like, I, love people.

There's a couple bad ones that give us a really bad rep, but if you actually really like talk to other people, anybody is like so deep and beautiful, you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Like once you get through the noise and through the like

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: Ego, like every single person has this like deepness to them because they just, that's what they are.

Exactly. And like they can try to forget and they can try to numb it out and they can try to fill the void, but the depth is good. If you fill the void, there's no more depth, you know? It's full. And so you're shallow, like to enter it is to be shallow 'cause it's already full. But if it's just open, empty, like if you really embrace it, it's, it's like that's where the magic happens, you know?

Weajue: Absolutely.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: That is such a good picture. Yeah. Yeah. I love that, how that ties just like everything. I guess it all comes back to the same idea, to the same, I guess the same chord that flows through the record.

Emily: Mm-hmm.

Weajue: I'll give us one little end off here , we've gone a little bit around the curvature of the record.

We talked about, the themes of it. If there's any other thing you think is necessary on our little map as we, let's say before someone wants to hand to walk the terrain of this record. Mm-hmm. What do they need to, what last thing should they know before they go off into the world?

Emily: I don't know. I feel like I've said everything. I'm like, yeah, you

Weajue: really have.

Emily: Yeah. Like I said, I really like my work is done. I said what I needed to say in the music and now I'm trying to like get it out there and get more people to hear it.

But ultimately I trust it will find people I trust in the, the spirit of songs and the spirit of music and like as a creative person, I think you have to trust that if you're putting like a medicinal intent into like medicine, natural medicine always finds who it's meant for. You know what I mean? Yeah.

I just like to have a very open mind about things and I hope the listeners approach this with an open mind and let the music like really enter their body and really like touch and alchemize with like their own personal experiences and their own like human existence and their own identity and their own thoughts.

Because again, everybody's so deep and beautiful and has such cool perspective and I hope that this can like alchemize with that.

Weajue: Yeah.

Emily: And be a unique journey for everybody that listens to it. You know what I mean? Like that. Yeah. I believe in the magic of, I believe in these songs like I I'm but the Conduit.

So Yeah. Yeah.

Weajue: Absolutely.

Emily: Yeah.

Weajue: Thank you so much Emily. Thank you for the record and for talking. Yeah. Thank you so much. I appreciate it so much.

Emily: I appreciate it so much too. It's really nice to like have a actual conversation about music.