Sydney based singer-songwriter Em George explores the pull of nostalgia in her new single, Metropolis - an earthy, drenched-in-sepia soundscape.

Metropolis is a continuation of the vulnerability we heard in her first self-titled album, and the moody Americana of her second album, Wolves. The culmination of these two sounds alerts us to the fact that Em George has truly come into her own.

“Metropolis is about the hypnotic effects of nostalgia, looking to the past and believing things could be different,” explains George. 

She shares the two chalk-and-cheese experiences that prompted her writing of this EP, acknowledging the complicated, oftentimes overwhelming relationship between trauma and memory. “It is two disjointed memories presented in one song. My first love, and separate to that, a traumatic incident that occurred around the same time, both things happening in a city. The effects of time and place on memory and disassociation.” 

Pete Covington, who has also worked with Middle Kids and Thelma Plum, produced the track. The force of their collaboration sees this EP injected with the same robust, folk sound reminiscent of Em George’s muses, Gillian Welch and Joni Mitchell. Metropolis encases within it the same introspective and questioning lyrics we’ve come to expect from George. Although, considering she has been a finalist in the International Songwriting Competition not once, but twice, this should come as no surprise.

For the more dramatic, like myself, it’s the kind of track you’ll want to queue as you commute through the city by train or bus on a rainy day, dragging your mind through a film reel of nostalgia and gorging on sentimentality. For everybody else, the song pairs well with coffee and cold winter mornings. 

Listen to Em George's new album Metropolis here. But don't be surprised if you don't come up for air for a few days.

Images: Em George