Emma-Jean Thackray

APPEARING: Gilles Peterson Sunday Jazz Dance Session @ Xanadu

Sunday, January 12, 2025, 6PM

Multi-dimensional multi-instrumentalist and producer Emma-Jean Thackray is busy working on music for release in 2025 which will be on Gilles Peterson’s Brownswood label. This follows the  superlative P-funk single “Black Hole” featuring comedian, beatboxer, musician Reggie Watts. Musically we can expect grunge, pop, soul and jazz, channelling George Clinton and Kurt Cobain from the award-winning artist’s powerfully idiosyncratic style. 

West Yorkshire born Emma-Jean self-released her first EP (Walrus, 2016) at a time when a wave of successful instrumentalists were emerging. Emma-Jean’s sound, though, always incorporated the widest range of music, from spiritual jazz and funk to Detroit house and techno, northern Bassline and ultra-catchy rock and pop music. In 2018 she released the boundary-defying Ley Lines drawing comparisons with US heavyweights including Madlib. 

A regular on BBC6Music, including covering shows for Mary Anne Hobbs, and on Worldwide FM, she’s also become an in-demand DJ, playing dancefloor-destroying sets worldwide. She bridges worlds: directing the London Symphony Orchestra and performing at Glastonbury five times in one year. In 2019 Jazz FM nominated her as their Breakthrough Act of the Year. Two years later she won the public vote for Act of the Year, and in 2022 Yellow was awarded Album of The Year. 

As well as attracting national attention, she’s applied a consistently self-starter ethos to music. EPs on her label Movementt: the tribal improvisations of Um Yang, ethereal, psychedelic funk of Rain Dance in 2020 and the cathartic freeness of Talking Therapy Ensemble (2022) signalled her exceptional talent. In 2023 the life-long Taoist signed a major deal with Brownswood and Parlophone.