NZ Music Every Godzone Month! sign from Too Tone Records in Dunedin.
Our New Zealand Music Month day #27 song is from Emily Fairlight’s “Mother Of Gloom” album – here’s “Drag the Night In”:
Fairlight’s album is a slow-burning masterpiece of dark and sometimes damaged alternative folk music with a heart of pop songcraft.
Singer-songwriter-musician Fairlight developed her craft in the fertile Christchurch/ Lyttelton scene that produced the likes of Marlon Williams and Aldous Harding and helped develop Port Chalmers musician Nadia Reid. She is now based in Dunedin after a shift south from Wellington.
The album was recorded far from NZ, by Doug Walseth of The Cat’s Eye Studio in Austin, Texas, with Okkervil River drummer Cully Symington and multi-instrumentalist Kullen Fuchs, who adds accordion to “Drag the Night In” here.
Fairlight’s striking, resonant voice is the key to breathing her songs into life. It’s a wonderfully distinctive instrument in its own right, full of a dark magic and carrying the weight of a world of heartbreak. But don’t be put off by the most likely tongue-in-cheek album title – “Mother of Gloom” is a rich and ultimately uplifting album of songs of perseverance and survival.
Pop Lib 