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.

Reviews

“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’s epic, haunting sound is captured on the four tracks that this ep offers. The intense combination of guitars, drums, lute, sitar, violins, tablas, and some sand, cask wine and flying carpets, creates this instrumental music that makes you feel like you are sitting on a lotus blossom, watching Saraswati ride a giant swan, whilst massaging you with her spare hands. Oh, and there’s a bit of Celtic psychedelica thrown in there too, notably on ‘A Question.’ ‘A Thousand Stars at Night’ will take you to the desert, and ‘Mr Finn’ has a lullaby-like opening that will send you into a dream of kilted warriors riding bareback through fields of heather. With so many instruments one may wonder how this doesn’t sound like a brown stew. I don’t know but I assure you it does not! Each instrument is crisp and audible, one complementing the other. Overtop, the violin sings melodically. Why take illicit substances when you can listen to this?
**** (four stars) Susan Strongman, Groove Guide

One night during the recent WOMAD festival, I was sitting at a hotel bar tending a glass filled with ice, when I heard the most incredible sound – the violin is something else in the hands of Felix Lun, of An Emerald City. He was keeping up with the Romanian gypsies, which is saying something. Felix and his raggle-taggle bandmates have created quite something with this EP – intertwining the mysteries of the east with a Canadian apocalypse? What a debut!
Matt Crawley, Eavesdrop

An Emerald City radio interview