Emily Robb - If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection LP (Petty Bunco, 2023)
"If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection pulls further on the thread Emily started with "How to Moonwalk," a stripped-down "when in doubt leave it out" approach that leaves the essentials...guitar/amp/electricity. What more do you want??
Where How to Moonwalk feels like it almost aggressively cuts away all of the other elements you'd expect in a rock setting…"If I Am Misery Then Give Me Affection," recorded by Emily at her own Suddenly Studio, is more laid back, the pieces feel like they don't really have a beginning or end, but that we have been dropped into the middle with an invitation to imagine them as they really are, stretching out endlessly in both directions. Mind-erasing rock riff as forever playing loop, the neverending throb of a runout groove, skuzzy and beautiful, edited here only for the sake of space and time. There's an intimacy to the tracks, as if we the listeners are eavesdropping on someone playing for the sake of playing and enjoying it as such without any kind of concern for formality....a real looseness that invites you in to experience the sound of the guitar for its own sake. The guitar is skeletal but little sounds like the pick on the strings or a finger moving along a fret are given equal footing in the mix and all of a sudden we are there in the room with Emily. Fuzz, repetition, amp hum and before you know it it's over and yr flipping it again and again and again and again and again." - Bill Nace