The problem is, as always, desire. We all know what it is to want; to be suffocated by our want; to confuse it with need. Desire breeds isolation. How does it feel to be siloed by your own urges? Does your desire to be known supersede the humiliation of asking for love? These questions have yielded religions and political movements and art for eons, but 23 year-old singer-songwriter-drummer-producer Emory Wellons, alias emory, approaches the conundrum quite pragmatically.

Or rather, her music is enlivened in this agonizing in-between. emory, whose entire released discography will last you approximately half a shower or maybe the time it takes to preheat an oven, released her first single, “double dog,” in the fall of 2024, and has since released three others, including her most recent song and its accompanying video, “moth.” Abbreviated oeuvre aside, the artist has already accrued an earnest, loyal fanbase without any of the cloying social media campaigns that have plagued the music industrial complex as of late. Hovering near the bar at Los Angeles’ Silverlake Lounge on the occasion of her first ever live solo performance, I hear a singular sentiment shared by the throng of jovial twentysomethings that have come to observe. We’re here before everyone else, friends gloat to one another between sips of beer. We got to say we knew her first.

The excitement is righteous—emory’s music feels unquestionably inventive. Her production (executed by a team of herself and her closest friends) has qualifying elements that could land her in any of the enduring popular genres (hyperpop, folk, indie pop, techno, the list goes on); she writes about love to the point of religiosity just like any astute artist does; but the final product manipulates these conventions to the point of estrangement. Her sound is wound tight, instrumentals coiling around bony lyrics, peppered with sounds of a dog barking or a machine switching off. emory’s music (and the thoughtful visuals that match) create affect: Bile rising in the back of a nervous throat. Heat lightning on a stale summer afternoon. 

emory speaks to me from Los Angeles, where she moved with her friends last year following her graduation from NYU’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music. We speak about “moth,” how she wants her project to unfold henceforth, and her fervent adoration for her community. She has a fortitude of presence, a peculiar gravity weighed against a buoyant sense of humor— “silliness,” as she calls it—that makes her music all the more honest. After all, if you strip back the longing; the metallic wantonness of the digital age; what will you find in another person if not an abundance of love?

Let’s talk “moth.” How did it come to be, sonically, and where does it land in the context of the other three offerings you’ve released thus far?

“moth” was definitely the first song I approached feeling confident about what I wanted my artist project to roughly sound like. I was about to leave school and lose access to this nice studio and equipment, so I just started recording everything: banjo, guitars, all of these instruments with fancy mics and outboard equipment for hours. I looked at everything I recorded and was like, “How can I make this sound weird and electronic just on my laptop?” 

That practice has become my default when working on my music now, recording something super acoustic and then translating it in a very digital, electronic way. It forces me to be both really thoughtful and experimental, which is an exciting challenge for me. The other songs take up clear, specific pockets of my music taste to me, but “moth” feels like all of my messy musical instincts in one big boiling pot.

Artists talk often about “finding their sound,” which tends to be an ongoing relationship created between the artist, their lived experience and the listener. Can you describe the process of searching for a sound, and how you know when you’ve found something worth sharing?

Honestly, the idea of “finding my sound” has always been intimidating. That process has just looked like spending time learning what I gravitate to, what I’m good at, what I’m very much not good at, what makes me feel excited when making something. It still varies all the time. As far as finding my actual “sound,” I think I’ve always just tried to be curious about different kinds of music and try things without judgement of myself, and slowly certain sounds start to align and my inclinations start to reveal themselves. 

Right now, I would say the things I’m making are somewhere in between folk and electronic, but I hesitate to even name it because I’m never really quite sure. I’ve gotten more comfortable with my music being in a state of change in a lot of ways. I’m trying to remind myself that my music will still always sound like me regardless of what kind of music that is. It will always be my voice and my hands making the song, to whatever extent.

In terms of sharing things, I have been trying to share whatever feels good in the moment with my close friends who are familiar with my goals and artistic desires. It’s recently been a very scary but a helpful confidence building practice. I think struggling with it has also helped me feel more okay about trusting my gut instead of pursuing a certain genre, or making choices based on what I think something is supposed to sound like.

There’s this intensely intimate, raw-feeling quality to your songwriting that many people are attracted to—there’s a severity to your songs that’s always balanced with a sense of playfulness. How do you strike a balance between whimsy and seriousness? Are they necessarily opposites of one another?

I definitely don’t think they are opposites. A huge grounding point for me in my creative process has been making room for play as much as I'm making room for sincerity. That's also just an important thing for me, and my relationships outside of music altogether. My best friends and I started a weird electronic country music project in college called Music Made For Horses that was based on that exact principle. 

Making music with your friends and laughing and crying and being so serious about being so silly is so cool and honest to me. I made all of these songs for my project around that time, and felt so safe and excited to do so. That combination of opposing feelings is something I feel so often outside of music. As much as I would like to feel one emotion at a time, that is just never the case for me. I think all of that has naturally found its way into the music because that’s just what feels the most honest.

How has this particular period of your life changed your relationship to music—the creation of it; the release event; the process of putting it together? What do you want to remember about this time, years from now?

My friends! My friends are what I want to remember most. The last year has been the hardest and also most rewarding year of my life, and my friends’ investment and care for my music is what made me really believe in it in the first place. My relationship to music feels a lot healthier, it doesn’t feel as win or lose as it did when I started. Putting together the show, prioritizing the creative elements that energize me and my collaborators, just pursuing what feels the most sincere to me has felt like the biggest win ever regardless of who is watching. But seeing people resonating with it outside of me and my friends, especially in a live setting, has been the coolest thing in the world. I want to remember that part too. It is ten times as important to me to bring the same excitement to other people and their friends to make the art they want to and build community around it. Especially for women and queer people wanting to be producers and experiment with gear and make music for themselves. That response makes me cry a lot. There’s nothing cooler than being able to encourage more of that with my music.

Artists, by trade, are obligated to be more attentive towards the minutiae of their surroundings. What details do you find the most compelling about people, places, things? What qualities in others do you find the most artistically engaging?

It’s always changing for me. Recently I’ve been so obsessed with people, places, and things being gentle. It can take so many forms and be so quiet or so loud! I think being gentle is the most attractive and confident quality a person can have. It's the kindest thing you can do and give to yourself, places and environments that are safe and gentle can be so different depending on the person. I could ramble about it forever. Maybe I am crazy, but being gentle is awesome. I'm trying to do it more and pay more attention to it around me.

What excites you the most about the future? Where to from here?

More shows! More new music that is different! More making friends and community around it! Trying and learning new things! I’m excited to feel more confident in myself around all of those things too, slowly but surely. I hope to do music and learn things for a long, long time.