Under her various musical guises, Emma Kupa has been something of a regular on this site ever since we started it. Originally emerging as the front-person of Standard Fare, Emma has gone on to front Mammoth Penguins, take a titular role in The Hayman Kupa band and generally play a huge role in the UK’s DIY/indie-pop/whatever you want to call it scene. Weaved in around those other projects, Emma has also been crafting her own solo-work, hinted at back in 2015 on the long sold-out Home Cinema EP. Some five years on, Emma is today sharing a brand new single, Nothing At All, the first taster of her upcoming debut album, It Will Come Easier, out in September via Fika Recordings (UK) and Palo Santo (USA).

While described as a solo record, It Will Come Easier is by no means an uncollaborative one, Emma joined by bandmates new and old to make an album that might just be her most musically expansive to date. Nothing At All serves as a fine introduction to this new musical horizon, citing the influence of Lou Reed’s Satellite Of Love, it is a track of contrasts. Across the track, it blends a strutting banjo line with a swampy bass-line, a folky Americana-intro with a chorus shimmering with layers of vocals and soaring electric guitar thrashing, and even finds room for an orchestral flourish as it constantly mutates across its six-minute runtime.

Lyrically, as with much of Emma’s output, this is a record influenced by intricacies of life. Here the focus is on the largely undocumented period of life, your early thirties, a time where there’s a pressure to have found your place in the world, where we learn to accept that the passionate exuberance of youth now often loses out in the battle with calculated, calm decision making. On Nothing At All, this is spun through a prism of frustration both at herself and at a wider situation, “what am I supposed to do? What can I even do? Absolutely nothing, nothing at all”.

As with much of the music Emma produces, one of the shining qualities here is how straight talking the track is, the way it hits onto a universal experience of frustration that will surely resonate with anyone listening. A decade on from when Standard Fare first made a splash, the creation of an Emma Kupa’s solo album already sounds like ten years well spent.

It Will Come Easier is out September 18th via Fika Recordings (UK) / Palo Santo (USA). Click HERE for more information on Emma Kupa.