After earning continuing airplay from BBC Introducing and their first spin on Radio 1, bedroom pop duo Esme Emerson release their debut EP ‘S For Sugar, D For Dog’. It arrives after the Chinese-British siblings – Esme Lee-Scott and Emerson Lee-Scott – have played some of their first official shows, including Omeara as guests to Luca Wilding and Notting Hill Arts Club as support to Miya Miya.
As heard on their recent singles ‘Words’, ‘Better This Time’ and ‘Eighteen’, Esme Emerson craft a warm, enveloping sound defined by delicate melodies, lusciously layered vocals and subtle atmospheric textures which add an off-kilter edge to their productions. The duo’s new focus track, ‘Look Down / Scared of Falling’, is a prime introduction to their sound, as celestial harmonies rise with a choral majesty around a refined soundbite of subtly deployed instrumentation. The duo’s intuitive connection is also remarkable, especially when Emerson’s deeper tone arrives unexpectedly to join Esme’s beautiful lead vocal.
As further evidenced by songs such as ‘Home’, the EP indicates the wide-reach of Esme Emerson’s potential. You could just easily imagine their future encompassing indie-folk, alt-pop or folktronica. It’s further underlined by their influences, which include Bon Iver, Phoebe Bridgers, Alt-J, Sigur Ros, RY X and all things K-pop. They wrote, produced and recorded the EP themselves, with mixing and executive production courtesy of Future Cut (Lily Allen, Mae Muller, Wretch 32).
Esme Emerson commented, “We love this EP. It’s about people, love and loss, but it’s also about us exploring our sound and how we write together as siblings. It’s an intimate and special project for us; it was almost all written, recorded and produced from our family home in Essex so in the background of all the tracks you can hear our parents and the house and sounds from outside.”
Based in Essex, Esme Emerson’s passion for music took off during childhood when they attended the Punch Rock School in Ipswich, a five-day intensive course designed to allow young people to develop their skills as songwriters and performers. After being discovered by Future Cut on TikTok, the pair have taken their time to perfect the ‘S For Sugar, D For Dog’ EP from their home studio. The EP cover also contains a nice detail – a photo of the siblings that was taken 18 years ago.
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