It’s a difficult one to navigate, popular music. And for female artists in particular, finding identity in an industry currently quite limited in what it’s willing to pass makes it all the more difficult. It wouldn’t be too hard to divide the most successful ‘rock’ music offered by women at the moment into two broad camps: the chilled lowercase-indie brigade and the inner circles of the raucous Marmozets-style alt-rock. Alice Jemima may not stray too far from the patterns of the former, but does give off the feeling that even within the restrictive bounds of what sells and what doesn’t, there is room for a little creative magic.
These strains of indie pop, for certain, have benefitted from the inputs of the artists who emerged off the back of the new Alternative ‘classics’: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Kills, Crystal Castles. With a little push from Warpaint and Wolf Alice, perhaps bands like CHVRCHES as well, the style of talking quietly to pull a curious audience and then saying something cool and blunt has given a savvy sort-of swagger to any artist allowing the influence to soften them up around the edges a bit.
As hopefully more than a mere extension of the current fashion, Alice Jemima’s most recent release confidently carries on from where it left 1st EP Liquorice earlier this year. ‘Dodged a Bullet’ comes with an attitude not dissimilar to that of dream-pop cool-kids Say Lou Lou, holding the listener enough to prevent them from being lulled to sleep whilst drawing back to that overarching idea of sounding a bit stoned and nihilistic. What Liquorice offered in terms of style and confidence, ‘Dodged a Bullet’ has replicated by building upon the smoothness of ‘So’ and ‘Under the Radar’, choosing to practice its artsy, hazy growls, sidelining the more perky expressions of ‘Diamonds and Bones’ (also very much worth a listen) and that cover of ‘No Diggity’ from 2013.
Jemima may stray close to the norm in terms of general effect but so far has tackled it with enough luck or natural talent to pull it off. The crispness of production, the composure of melody and lyrics, seem to tick all the boxes of complete and well-written songs. As long as her music continues to express individual skill and strength, Alice Jemima will remain one of the most noteworthy new things to have emerged from 2016. The artist has recently received airtime from Radio 1 and will be presumably looking forward to playing Bestival in September.