We recently had a chat with legendary trance vocalist and now trance artist in her own right, Emma Hewitt. We talked about her upcoming album, her work as a vocalist and also a producer, and what she has coming up next. Read on for the full interview!
Hey Emma! Congratulations on the release of your new album, Ghost Of The Light.
Can you explain the inspiration behind the title and how it reflects the overall theme
of the album?
EH: Hi guys, thanks so much! The title “Ghost Of The Light” is a reference to the
moments, the people, places and memories that we carry silently within us. They are
always there and we catch a brief glimpse of them sometimes, but yet they stay
somehow just slightly out of reach.
Credited as a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and co-producer on this
album, what was it like to wear so many hats in the creative process?
EH: It was in some ways very liberating, to really have no creative boundaries or
expectations, to be able to just work at creating the sounds I was hearing in my head. That
said, it was also quite overwhelming, once I realized I actually had to figure out HOW to
create the sounds I was hearing in my head…and get everything finished! It was a huge
learning curve. We had an awesome team though, with my brother Anthony and our friend
Tim Henwood. Our intentions were really modest – just to create the sonic landscapes that
would help tell these stories as best we could.
The song ‘Satellites’ seems to encapsulate the overall theme of the album, can you
delve a bit deeper into the story and the thought process behind this track?
EH: I had never really thought about that song representing the overarching theme of the
record, but you are absolutely right. ‘Satellites’ is really speaking to the notion that time, distance and space are in a way irrelevant. When someone, or some moment is persisting in your memory, you are right back there. Staying awake at night, revisiting or reliving the experience, as though it is all playing out again in the now. That contradiction appealed to me; that moments that happened so long ago can still be right with you.
‘Holding Out For You’ discusses the struggle of finding inspiration. How do you
typically handle creative dry spells, and how did that influence this song in particular?
EH: That song was like therapy. Having writer’s block and then writing about the writer’s
block, I guess it was like ‘Inception’. I feel like sometimes I just need to break out of the
genre box that I have been often placed in. It is difficult to be inspired to write sometimes
when you get sent a bunch of tracks that kind of do similar things, it’s like, how can I turn this
into something fresh or meaningful? It becomes frustrating when I want to work with
someone but I just can’t get any inspiration for the track. It was important for me to step
outside of genres to make this album, to just create from a space of wanting to say
something again.
Ghost Of The Light seems to focus a lot on the concept of memory. How do you feel
your past has influenced your present as an artist? How would you say you’ve evolved as an artist since your last released album in 2012, Burn The Sky Down?
EH: I believe every moment we experience shapes and changes us in some small way, we
are not the same people now as we were even a week ago, even if the shifts are super
subtle. It really inspires me to reflect over the seemingly small moments that in hindsight
changed the course of things. There has been a lot of life lived since Burn The Sky Down, but I do feel this album is kind of the next chapter in the same book, even if it took me a while to come back to it.
Do you have any shows coming up where fans will get to hear Ghost Of The Light
live?
EH: Absolutely. The flip-side to this album is that all of these songs are accompanied by
remixes from people who I respect a lot and I’m looking forward to premiering a lot of those
versions in the clubs. I am in Miami on 26th May with Gareth Emery, then off to Asia for
some shows out there. From mid-June I will be doing a Phase 1 USA tour for a couple of
months. Sacramento, San Fran, Denver, Seattle, Portland, NYC, Phoenix, Houston and
more (Tickets: linktr.ee/emmahewittofficial).
What’s next for you after the release of Ghost Of The Light?
EH: There will be a full expanded edition of GOTL featuring remixes across all tracks and
once that is out, I have music on the way with Elysian and another track with Markus Schulz.
After taking so long to put an album together, I feel like I’m almost ready to dive back into
studio land, but I think the goal will be to strip it down to four or five songs and put out an EP
in this more introspective singer/songwriter style. I would like to go a little further down the
creative rabbit hole and see where it takes me…