Singular Artists proudly presents
EMILY BARKER
plus support
Whelan’s Upstairs • Wed 22nd January 2025
After her recent move back to WA, Emily Barker begins a new musical chapter with her latest single, ‘Wild to be Sharing This Moment’.
While waiting for the train at London’s Kings Cross station, inspiration struck. Emily quickly plucked a notebook from her bag to document her musings. “I was people-watching and thinking of how vulnerable we all are, with our own stories and secrets, all sharing this same moment in time and space,” she recalls.
Emily had been at a birthday party celebrating a friend’s son turning one and a wave of nostalgia washed over her for a simpler time living on a narrowboat in London. “I’d had a couple of G&Ts,” she quips.
On the train, “there were passengers sleeping at awkward angles, some reading, some playing games on their phones, some with masks, most without, some listening to music and tapping a foot, children clinging to parents.
“I found myself questioning where empathy has gone,” Emily remembers. “The song is about compassion. The war in Ukraine had just started and it was all feeling very intense, much like it is right now.”
How can we study the wounds of our history and still send our children to war?
“I’m an advocate for keeping conversation alive across divides,” Emily stresses, “for trying to approach each encounter as an opportunity for connection. We have to find our common humanity in order to make the world a safer, better place for us all to live in.”
‘Wild to be Sharing This Moment’ unfurls gradually, propelling the listener towards a vast, cinematic climax, each additional verse bringing new meaning to the instantly memorable chorus.
Isn’t it wild to be sharing this moment
The same very thimble of time
Barker is the writer and performer of the themes to the BBC’s hugely successful crime dramas Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh, and The Shadow Line, starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, as well as composing the soundtrack for the acclaimed indie movie Hector, starring Peter Mullan.
Her latest album—A Dark Murmuration of Words—was produced by Greg Freeman and recorded at StudiOwz, a converted chapel in the Welsh countryside. Lyrically probing, by turns both dark and optimistic, Barker searches for meaning through the deafening clamour of fake news and algorithmically filtered conversation.
“an album of spare, striking beauty” Mojo ★★★★
“…a kind of Australian equivalent of PJ Harvey’s Let EnglandShake” UNCUT 8/10
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TICKETS
€23 available online from Whelan’s – €1 per ticket service charge applies.
Strictly over 18′s, I.D. may be required
AFTER THE GIG
Whelan’s Silent Disco from 10:30pm – 2 DJs, just pick the one you like best (€5 cover charge), plus Late Bar