I Ain’t So Blue is Australian folk musician Emmy Ryan’s debut EP, and it’s an incredible showcase of her inner world, which is inevitably influenced by the world outside her. Comprised of seven songs and with a runtime just shy of thirty minutes, the EP is delightful, straightforward, topically relevant to the world at large, and, above all, honest. And it’s precisely this, Emmy’s honesty as a songwriter, that allows I Ain’t So Blue to feel like a unique display of talent and a promising sign for the music she will compose in the future.
As it is only fitting to start from the beginning, the EP opens with two tracks that effectively introduce us to Emmy’s sensibilities: Solo, So Low and A Place to Call Home. On the first song, we’re shown the meditative side of Emmy, as she is reminded of a past relationship, prompting her to reflect on the loneliness she is currently feeling. On the second one, she brings these meditative feelings to the world outside her mind, as the track is focused on the rise of interest rates on land, and how folks like her struggle to find a place to call home in the face of landlords’ monetary desires.
These two songs’ core elements can be found in many of the tracks on I Ain’t So Blue, as Emmy is capable of drawing us into her mind and the thoughts that inhabit it; but she can also get us to rally behind a just cause through the same process. The songs In My Dreams and How Many are great examples of this, as one is about navigating the insecurities around love and attraction, and the other is effectively a protest song that, thanks to the cover image used in the single version, we know is about the ongoing conflict in Palestine.
This is not to say that Emmy has a template when approaching music, rather, pointing this out shows how the fundamentals of the EP make it a cohesive and direct endeavor. Nowhere is this clearer than in the title track, I Ain’t So Blue, which is a fascinating song to choose to represent the project. The piece shows us a series of vignettes of Emmy’s world, intertwined with the chorus about how she’d tell the world she ain’t so lonely, that she ain’t so blue, but only if she’d convince herself that’s true. Considering that phrase is the first thing we see when opening the EP, there’s a sense that in the process of singing us these songs, with all the intimate feelings and worries attached to them, Emmy has in a way matured to tell us that, really, she ain’t so blue.
As for room for improvement, there is some space in the current folk music landscape that Emmy could use as inspiration for her next project. For starters, I Ain’t So Blue’s musical palette is perfectly suitable for the songs featured on it, but other folk musicians, take Mount Eerie as an example, have explored a diverse array of sounds that could also suit Emmy’s thematic ambitions in a more dynamic way. In terms of songwriting, Emmy’s intimate style could lean more into the vivid imagery already present in songs like Rainbow Trout, with artists such as Adrianne Lenker and Kara Jackson as possible guidance for this direction.
This is to say that Emmy’s future looks promising, as she is no doubt a talented and sensitive person who will continue to look inside and outside her world for inspiration. Hopefully, we get to hear more from her sooner rather than later.
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