Emily Stewart The Anatomy of Melancholy Elling Lauermann Kienberger Stewart - BCE16008

It’s not just that you’ll think: Wait, don’t I know that name… “Emily Stewart”? You’ll also feel like you’ve heard that music before. You have to have had! Except that The Anatomy of Melancholy is actually Emily Stewart’s debut album. Born in London and raised in Costa Rica, the violinist and composer Emily Stewart now lives in Vienna. She regularly tours with the celebrated Austrian popstar Anja Plaschg (a.k.a. Soap&Skin), the Scottish indie pop group Belle and Sebastian, and with the Swedish jazz pianist and composer Jan Lundgren. Here’s her first own album then, which is an utterly convincing and eclectic combination of classical, jazz, and folk elements with a dash of improvisation and a soupçon of a singer-songwriter‘s perspective. It’s a musical narrative based on Robert Burton’s 1621 tome of the same name: a continuous shift from longing to melancholy with stops everywhere between.