Emma Miller – Sick & Tired (2024)
From the brink of quitting music in 2019 to travelling the world touring in the 2020s, singer-songwriter Emma Miller experienced life’s highs, lows and everything in between over the past few years. A pioneer in the music industry, Scottish songstress Miller is the leading blockchain artist creating waves with Music NFT. One of the first to release music on the platform, she established herself as a forward-thinking, innovative and inspiring individual with a lovely voice to boot. Not entirely new to The Other Side Reviews, she hit our speakers with 2020’s ‘Honey’ and 2022’s ‘Meet Me On The Lake’. Today, we delve further into her discography with the recent single ‘Sick & Tired’.
Following her single ‘In The Smoke (Eligh’s Version)’, a collaboration with UK-based artist Eligh, Miller’s ‘Sick & Tired’ is a fusion of vintage folk and alternative pop with avant-garde sentiments. Actually, if I’m completely honest, classifying the single is nearly impossible because of the persistent off-kilter sound. While her boundary-breaking style leaves us hanging in an ethereal haze of “what the hell” one thing I can be certain of is her skill to capture emotions in moving melodies.
Produced with friends Billy Ottewill and Aidan Hargreaves, ‘Sick & Tired’ is an intricate combination of strings, piano, drums and Miller’s obscure vocals. I find it intriguing that each instrument from the classical viola to the acoustic piano harmoniously intertwines yet retains individuality throughout. Magnificently textured, each element exists on a separate level like the different parts of the brain – independent but symphonic. Distant strings bring a haunting echo while Ruby Finch’s drums pulsate like a beating heart. Atop the intricate instrumental arrangement, Emma Miller’s odd vocals stand tall.
The melody in itself is a marvel but the lyrical theme is what makes ‘Sick & Tired’ masterful. Emma Miller explains: “Writing ‘Sick & Tired’ was a kind of ‘fuck you’ to my own inner demons and the social pressures we can put ourselves under. I still relate to it on a deep level, but it feels good to be in a different place today.”
Find out more about Emma Miller on her Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Spotify.
This artist was discovered via Musosoup #sustainablecurator
Discover more avant-garde artists on The Other Side Reviews Avant Garde playlist: