Emma Tricca

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In life and music, Emma Tricca is an explorer. Just as ‪Davey Graham set sail for Morocco and ‪Vashti Bunyan for the Outer Hebrides in search of their elusive ‪muse, Rome-raised singer-songwriter Tricca has journeyed to London, New York, Texas and further afield to seek the heart of her own music. And like those renowned voyagers, she’s returned with a set of songs that refresh the tired old folk form. Tricca’s new album St Peter – created with a cast of supporting artists including global icon ‪Judy Collins, ‪Sonic Youth’s ‪Steve Shelley and Dream Syndicate guitarist Jason Victor – takes a bracing plunge into the unknown, leaving the folksinger tag far behind with a rolling collection of reverie-inducing raw diamonds.

It was encouragement from ‪Pentangle legend ‪John Renbourn that started Tricca on her lifelong path. An aspiring young player, she met Renbourn after a solo gig in Rome and impressed him with her fresh-cut songs. A move to the UK was inevitable, gigging around folk clubs first in Oxford and later in London, honing her craft as a songwriter and a fingerstyle guitarist. Extended stays in New York and Texas followed, before Tricca returned to London to begin work on her first melancholic masterpiece, 2009’s crystalline long-player Minor White.

The album was released on Bird Records, an offshoot of Finders Keepers run by husband and wife team ‪Jane Weaver and ‪Andy Votel, who’d been thrilled by Tricca’s talent (and her Italian leather boots) at the Green Man Festival in 2006. They secured her a show at ‪Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown Festival in London, ensuring international exposure, a major European tour and a run of shows with her old friend Renbourn.

Five years later Tricca released Relic, an album even more poised and precise than its predecessor. Scoring rave reviews across the board – 4 stars in Record Collector and Mojo, 5 in Time Out – the album added gentle percussion and plaintive orchestration to the established pattern of hushed guitar and heartfelt vocals. A collaboration with longtime friend and guitar wizard Jason McNiff led to 2017’s sparkling Southern Star EP, while a song on the soundtrack of Patrick Stewart-starring US indie film Match raised her profile. But encouraged by Weaver – who urged her to ‘explore the weirdness’ in her music – Emma Tricca was hungry for a new challenge.

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