FEATURE:
Spotlight
that you know is primed for a long future in music. EMEREE is “the project born by Melbourne’s standout musician, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Gabrielle Emery. Her music confidently shines alongside contemporary R’n’B fusion artists RAYE and Cleo Sol. The homage to classic soul in the ilk of Amy Winehouse is woven into EMEREE’s self-produced records. Combining her four-octave vocal range, Motown grooves, 90’s R&B flair and warm production makes EMEREE unmissable. Feeling both warmly familiar and undeniably unique in 2024 is no mean feat. As a writer, her lyrics often explore the realms of sexual identity and female empowerment with addictive honesty. With her works generating over 50 million streams on DSPs and millions of views on TikTok, EMEREE is solidifying herself as one-to-watch in the Australian industry”. EMEREE recently played the Great Escape in Brighton. Her mixtape, Maybe I’m Just Too Sensitive (I Am), is out on 11th September. She was also one of NME’s Essential Emerging Artists for 2025, where they said the following:
“From: Melbourne, Australia
For fans of: Amy Winehouse, Raye
A spellbinding blend of contemporary R&B and soul tied together by one of the most incredible new voices out of Australia, EMEREE’s debut EP ‘Gold’ marked the Melburnian as one to watch. Bold yet introspective, her music – which she says she makes “for crazy bitches” – approaches matters of the heart (and the bedroom) from a distinctively queer female perspective with a refreshing warmth and candour. GY
Key track: ‘Smooth Honey’”.
There are a few interviews from this year I want to get to. Couch Mag spoke with EMEREE around the release of her then-new single, Eyesore. This is an artist I discovered through NME, and I am looking back at older interviews and listening to her music. This is someone I am committed to staying with. I will come to an NME interview to end things:
“· Your latest single “Eyesore” has been described as “petty, polished, and revenge that smiles while it stings”. What sparked the idea for this track, and how did you land on its tone?
One specific person absolutely inspired this one, and I don’t usually write that way (or admit to it). He had the biggest ego I’d ever experienced, so I didn’t feel too bad. I wrote this after having to block and completely remove him from my life. There’s plenty of context laced throughout the song, but my favourite is the end of the second verse, “and she’ll help me burn you out with sage”. This was inspired by a time when he actually said to me, “At least I didn’t turn any girls gay”.
· The DIY music video is packed with vintage horror and camp. What inspired the visual concept, and how involved were you in the direction and styling?
There’s actually a WILD movie that inspired me that I watched with my housemate called ‘Isle Of Lesbos’. It’s a low-budget queer movie from the 90’s and it’s so wild and that definitely inspired the aesthetic and ‘intentionally low-budget’ feel of the video. Obviously there’s also influence of Sabrina Carpenter in there, but it’s mostly 80’s campy horror movies. I made it entirely DIY with my friends, and edited it myself whilst travelling.
· There’s this magnetic duality in your music: glossy pop production with razor-sharp lyrics. How do you balance those worlds in your writing and sound?
Because I’m a producer, I’m often working in rooms with different writers and artists, and I think the best thing you can do is step outside your comfort zone and write truthfully – and even a step beyond that and go more theatrical. I used to write very safely when I was younger, and I am now often in rooms with writers where they’ll say, “Oh I don’t know if I want to say that it might be mean/raw/too much. I’m always the one to go WRITE IT! Anything you can write, I can write meaner”. I think it’s a great way to get better writing from people. The moment you stop thinking about how it’s going to be interpreted, the more relatable your lyrics will become. At the end of the day, it’s just art. This is where you can explore those characters and make things that aren’t necessarily your true self. I produce based on my instincts and my influences, and there’s always a lot of R&B and Soul influence. I am always trying new things with my production and it’s also an area where I like to explore beyond ‘safe’.
· You’re known for championing female and queer voices in music. How do identity and empowerment shape your creative output?
It’s amazing once you find your community, how much it shapes you. I really struggle being away from my people now which is not something I have experienced before. I have a very strong foundation of queer and neurodivergent communities around me back home, and so travelling often takes it out of me, as that can be harder to connect to. I think finding your community and realising that they do exist and you’re not alone helps to create more vulnerability and truth in your lyrics, because I know there’s an audience there for it”.
The next interview is from Contact Music. EMEREE spoke about what it was like being honoured by NME as one of their one-hundred artists to watch. Her single, Spring Cleaning, addresses a domestic abuse ordeal, and what her long-terms goals are. I do hope that she comes and plays in the U.K. at some point. Fans over here would love to see her on stage:
“CM: Did fellow Australian singers, such as Kylie Minogue, Iggy Azalea and many others, inspire you to become a musician?
E: I wouldn't necessarily say the big Australian artists. Some of the music that I listened to was people who aren't necessarily quite as big, but their music found a fan base for themselves somehow, just because they've found a way to connect to people. And I think that's really cool. I think my ideal career would be like Mark Ronson, where you get to produce for all the artists, because I love producing so much, and it's so fun. But you also get to have your own project and get to be a little bit freer with it. You get to experiment more because you've got the production as well, so you can do the commercial hits with them. And then kind of focus on really exploring your own project.
CM: It's nice to do a bit of both, isn't it? I suppose it changes up the routine.
E: Yeah, it does. Getting to produce, you're working with someone else's vision. And there's just nothing more powerful than collaboration. And it's such a cool thing to get to be a part of someone's art.
CM: You've mentioned in the past that the type of music that's inspired you is 1950s and 1960s, soul and gospel. What is it about those genres from that time period that you fell in love with?
E: I just like how raw it is. I love the groove of that era of music, all the soul that is in it. I like how things aren't as clean. And that's something that I really try and reflect, even in my more modern productions, I really like to keep things a bit more raw, and I don't clean, quote, unquote up the mix as much, and I leave frequencies in that other people might take out because I want all that authenticity. And I really like to record real instruments in real rooms and really utilise the space that I'm in, because I think that's such a crucial part of those sorts of records; you can just feel that everyone was just in that room.
CM: You've been named as one of the top 100 artists to watch in 2025 by NME. What does that mean to you?
E: Oh, that was crazy. The manager called me and then sent me the email. And I was like, 'I know NME. WHAT?' And then I looked at the other people on the list, and I was like, 'How did they even know that I existed?' It was just really crazy. I think that's been the craziest thing over the last year. Before, I was putting myself forward to get any opportunity, but now they're just coming to me, which is wild and amazing, and I'm grateful.
CM: Spring Cleaning's lyrics are incredibly powerful, and you address your domestic violence experience through that. How proud are you of the single?
E: It's been really good. I feel like I had to because in the lead up to it coming out, I was quite obviously vulnerable. I hadn't talked about these things publicly at all, and I've still kept a lot of the details very private, purely from a safety perspective. It was really special how many people reached out to me, and because it's such a common issue, people really resonated with it, and it's been really nice to see it received, especially on the other side of the world. And I love that it was co-written with three other women. It was such a special writing experience because I really hadn't been able to put my feelings into words in that kind of way. And these women really helped me. I was spilling everything out, and they were turning it into poetry. And I was like, 'Wow.'
CM: Why did you feel it was important to address your experience through Spring Cleaning?
E: I just want to get this f***** out of my head. And it's just about taking back the space in your brain that a traumatic experience like this takes up. It happens to be for domestic violence for me. When you go through something very traumatic, such as PTSD or anything like that, it just takes up such a huge space in your brain. And I was like, 'I'm just so sick of thinking about this person.' It's not about them anymore. It's actually about me, and that's what the whole song is really about.
CM: What would you say your one long-term goal is for the rest of your music career?
E: I just want to be making music every day. That's really all I care about. As long as I can make music every day, and I can pay to have a roof over my head”.
I am going to end with NME’s recent interview. I have chosen passages where we get to learn about EMEREE as a producer. Her perspective on the industry and the fact that there is still imbalance. She also discusses how she is in the U.K. recording at the moment. I cannot wait to hear what the mixtape, Maybe I’m Just Too Sensitive (I Am), has to offer:
“But before she got heads turning as an artist in her own right, EMEREE started out producing music behind-the-scenes for others in the Australian music industry, including Tyla Jane (2021’s ‘Energy’) and Sophia Petro (2023’s ‘Memory of You’). While the singer enjoys being in the spotlight now, she admits that she still finds touring and performing “a lot more draining” than being in the studio working on music – whether for herself or others.
“I just love being a producer and I really resonate with that side of my craft more,” she says, adding that the “ideal situation” would be to follow the career path of someone like Mark Ronson. “Being in studios every single day, working, producing, writing, doing whatever for those artists. Then, I get to completely let loose with my project and just do whatever weird things that I want to, rather than having to focus on, ‘Oh, this needs to be good for charts.’”
At the same time, EMEREE is more than aware how male-dominated the production side of music can be. “It’s just immensely harder to be taken seriously [as a female producer] for some reason. They think I know how to use GarageBand or could fumble my way through Logic, but I’ve done a whole ass audio engineering degree,” she says. “I’m still getting in those rooms, and people will be like, ‘Oh, so when’s the producer getting here?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m the producer.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah. But when’s the engineer getting here?’”
She believes that “things need to start changing in those big rooms” and for women to be properly credited for the work they’ve done. “There’s plenty of female artists who also do a lot of their own production, like Ariana Grande, who does all her vocal production,” she adds. “It’s about realising that there might be some internalised misogyny, of having this view of what a producer should look like.”
For now, EMEREE is enjoying living the life of a burgeoning artist and producer, flying across the world to London and doing “50 days back-to-back of at least one session every single day” and still not being tired after. “I literally never get sick of being in the studio,” she tells NME, admitting that she has “a stupid amount of music in the backlog” awaiting release. “I think it’s good that I always start and finish my songs myself. And I don’t think that’s ever gonna change. And I don’t really want it to”.
If you have not followed EMEREE yet then make sure that you do. She is an extraordinary human who is among the best rising artists around. Such a tremendous producer and songwriter, it is going to be so interesting watching her career grow. The mixtape, Maybe I’m Just Too Sensitive (I Am), is out on 11th September. Someone that needs to be…
ON your radar.
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