Track By Track: Emma Louise on Supercry

Behind Louise's early success lies a body of work driven by her goosebump-inducing, crystalline vocal. On her second album, Supercry, the Cairns-born 24-year-old pairs her voice with intimate, downbeat pop that muses on love, travel, and loneliness.

Louise talks us exclusively through the tracks on Supercry below. Be sure to stream the album alongside her exclusive explanations.

All I Ask Is Time

This song paints a picture of a space that was once filled densely of love and passion but is now vacant and still. There are memories hanging everywhere, heavy about the room. Then there’s this ghost of a thought that says maybe all we needed was time. And that’s a heavy thought.

Talk Baby Talk

"Talk Baby Talk" is a song about a lack of communication in a relationship. Lots of things left unsaid calls for lots of room in the mind to make stories. There is a lot of tension and frustration in the song. I couldn’t express my feelings and thoughts to someone so I ended up bottling it up and it came out as this song.

Underflow

I wrote "Underflow" about a feeling of knowing that a change is about to come. This feeling was bubbling up inside me. I knew that with the change would be both good and bad things. It’s about moving forward and accepting change. Whether it be the end of a relationship or the start of another exciting journey.

Everything Will Be Fine

I wrote "Everything Will Be" fine in Japan. I was quite lost at the time and I was staying in a cabin at the top of a mountain in Matsumoto in the middle of winter. I got snowed in a few times and the snow was amazingly deep everywhere. I was the only one on the mountain. It was a crazy adventure but at the time I was really going through a lot of emotions. I have a lot of funny stories from this trip. I was writing a lot of heavy songs and I thought I’d write a song that promised everything was going to be fine. It made me feel a lot better.

Colours

I starting dulling myself down for someone and went through a phase of only buying beige clothes. Once I realised how fucked that was I promised I’d never dull myself for anyone ever again. I wrote "Colours" as a promise to myself that I’d never drain myself of my colour. No one should ever chisel down parts of their personality or appearance to fit someone else’s mould. You’ll just end up being a lesser version of the You that you could be. And that’s boring.

Shut The Door

I wrote this song the morning after I knew I’d just spent the last night with the man I loved. It’s about accepting letting go but also expresses the fear of letting go. There’s a lot of passion flying around everywhere in the end of a relationship – in some ways it feels good. Like break up sex. Ultimately this song is about break up sex and the push and pull of letting go of one another’s body.

Nowhere

I really don’t like to sit still for too long. This song is about a time when I was more restless than usual. I somehow ended up on the back of a motorbike with a guy who is now my great friend. We left in the morning after meeting at a cafe and we went riding all around northern New South Wales for a few days. Also after I wrote this song I was kind of taken away from stillness by a few relationships. I did lots of travelling and it felt great to not be at home thinking too much. It was exciting. Though I sometimes wonder if running away all the time means I won’t be able to hold down a relationship for too long. Which is a worry.

Grace

"Grace" is my best friend. We met in the first year of high school and have been soul mates ever since. After high school we both fell in love with boys and lived far away from each other. By chance, we both broke up with our boyfriends and she moved onto the same street as me. It was magic and I was convinced she was angel. She helped me though some very rough times. If it weren’t for Grace I’m not sure how I would have coped. We drank lots of wine and went to Europe and laughed and cried and mended our broken hearts together.

Ship

I had a really big whopper of a breakup. It was the realest love I think anyone could feel. Times were really hectic when we were breaking up and I would go to The Old Museum in Brisbane and play this old piano in the basement there. My boyfriend had a studio in The Old Museum too and one day I found out he was seeing someone else. I went into the basement with a bag full of microphones and I mic’d up the piano down there. I was crying while I was writing and recording this song. The piano on the recording is the original piano from that day. Finding out that the person I loved has been with someone else is one of the worst feelings I have ever experienced.

West End Kids

I hadn’t left my house in about two weeks or so and a friend of mine took me to a show in my old neighbourhood, West End (in Brisbane). I had avoided it for about a year because that’s where I lived with my ex-boyfriend. After the show I walked around West End for hours and was hit in the face by all these old feelings, good and bad. I speeded home and wrote this song and it felt good.

Illuminate

"Illuminate" is about coming out of a dark time and being determined to turn yourself around for good. It’s about the return of colour and a celebration of the newness in the times ahead. It’s about breaking out of a shell and being like “wassup world I’m back motherfuckers!"

Supercry is out now