Emma Gatrill at The Glee Cardiff

Emma Gatrill is a multi-instrumentalist based in Brighton. Her debut, Chapter I, was a poignant collection of songs based around her then-latest acquisition – the harp. Subtly accompanied by Brighton’s Willkommen Collective, her intricate harp playing coupled with a unique vocal fragility drew comparisons to Björk and Joni Mitchell as well as her friends and co-conspirators Rachael Dadd and Rozi Plain.

By the time the album came out, she’d already played clarinet in Laura Marling’s band on Glastonbury’s Pyramid stage, made up part of Broken Social Scene’s horn section on a run of UK dates and toured all over Europe as part of Sons Of Noel And Adrian. Since then she’s been touring and collaborating with kindred spirit Kristin McClement and as a member of Matthew & The Atlas.

Gatrill also found time to develop her own live show beyond the simplicity of Chapter I; augmenting her harp and vocal with ambient analogue synths and drum machines using foot controllers, as well as introducing accompanying guitar atmospherics from label-mate Marcus Hamblett. Five years and hundreds of live shows later, her larger-scale live ambitions fed back into the writing and recording process for Gatrill’s second album, Cocoon.

Gatrill’s circle of influences has widened too – on Cocoon Emma draws from the joyful experimentation of Juana Molina and the intelligent pop and texturally rich arrangements of Julia Holter and My Brightest Diamond. The album was mixed by Dan Cox whose work for the likes of Laura Marling, Thurston Moore and Florence and the Machine lead to him being named Breakthrough Engineer of the Year at the Music Producer’s Guild awards.