Posted on: November 23, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Emily Jane White Embarks On West Coast Tour; Haunted Debut “Dark Undercoat” Out Now
Much anticipated California folk singer’s debut album out November 6th

With California’s sunny new folk movement in full swing with recent releases by Devendra Banhart and Brightblack Morning Light, 26 year old California native Emily Jane White’s gothic blues are taking the movement down a darker path. Armed with little more than an acoustic guitar and her fragile alto, San Francisco folk singer/songwriter Emily Jane White offers complex tales of melancholy and isolation. While comparisons to contemporaries like Chan Marshall and Hope Sandoval are frequent, Emily’s music owes a clear debt to classic female jazz and blues singers such a Bessie Smith. The lead track “Bessie Smith” from her debut Dark Undercoat (out now) is indeed an homage to the influential legend.

Dark Undercoat quickly found a home on Double Negative Records based solely on a stunning, mysterious, out-of-nowhere demo sent to the Oakland–based label. Fooling around with music since pre-school, Emily started on piano around the same time she learned to read, eventually picking up the guitar during her college days at UC Santa Cruz. While doing stints in an array of college punk and metal bands, she began writing her own songs and fronted her own group, the Diamond Star Halos. After graduation Emily picked up and moved to Bordeaux, where she performed with a bevy of independent French artists further honing her songwriting skills. Upon returning stateside, she moved to SF and began recording 4-track demos formulating the songs that would ultimately become her debut album, Dark Undercoat.

Catching the press’ eye with Rolling Stone naming Emily as “Hot Chanteuse” on their 2007 Hot List and with the support from fans such as Rickie Lee Jones, Emily Jane White’s. Her song “Wild Tigers I Have Known” has recently appeared the Cam Archer movie of the same title, and appears on the soundtrack with Six Organs Of Admittance, among others. You can see the video for the song, directed by Cam Archer, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aw6Kh-lzVgM

Emily begins her tour this week with the record release party at Amnesia in San Francisco, heading up and down the California coast to play a series of shows in smaller towns for the most part.

Tour dates:

11/23 San Francisco, CA @ The Independent
11/29 Los Angeles, CA @TBA
11/30 Los Angeles, CA @ TBA

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