An Emerald City - An Emerald City
Since their inception in late 2005, Auckland band An Emerald City have strived for musical experimentation and liberation. Organic instrumentation and sounds of the east meet psychedelia with guitars and violin are at the centre of this original and unique 6 piece.
The summer of 2007/2008 unleashed an array of summer performances that included the likes of: Soundsplash, Rhythm and Vines, bfm’s Summer Series and Shore Sounds. Womad saw An Emerald City perform to over 1200 people across their two performances. This is also where NZers and the world got their first opportunity to purchase a slice of An Emerald City - their debut self titled ep - if you missed out, never fear, now is your chance to get a piece of this truly original band.
The 4 track ep features two of the bnet favourites ‘Qing Song’ (also featured as Karen Walker’s opening track at New York Fashion Week this year) and ‘A Thousand Stars At Night’ recorded at Clockwork Studios in Auckland with Nick Taylor. The ep also includes 2 new songs ‘Mr. Finn’ and the new single ‘A Question’ recorded at Roundhead Studios with Liam Finn and Jol Mulholland. The sriking original artwork is by Mr. Will Handley.
An Emerald City is: Ede - lute/sitar; Reyahn - drums/tablas, Sam – guitars, Reuben – guitars, Felix - violin.
An Emerald City
Review
“This extraordinary four-track EP by an Auckland band which is long on instrumental elegance and very short on pretention is a diamond, and like a precious gem you can turn it many ways and appreciate different refractions.
These swooning, grand and widescreen instrumentals have something in common with the great US band Explosions in the Sky but they also have a more exotic element through the presence of violin, cello and what sound like discreetly placed sitar and Chinese lute.
The pieces sway into each other, have a definite hypnotic and ambient quality, but also thoroughly engage the attention.
Astral, epic, allusive, soundtracks for imaginary movies . .
Say what you will, but don’t ignore it.”
Graham Reid, Elsewhere
An Emerald City radio interview
