Music For Emily Dickinson

It's an interesting challenge to put to music the poetry of Emily Dickinson, considering it was first published in 1890.

Still, the forward-thinking elliptical tone of her writing and the subject matter of alienation and despondency are well suited to a contemporary interpretation, especially when done by veteran Perth guitarist Greg Dear and jazz/rock band The Beautiful Losers. The soundscape was ever-changing, from melodic to jazzy to dark industrial musings, helped admirably by Hurb Jephasun on keys and an array of distortion effects from Dear's intuitive guitar playing. Guest vocalist Nikki Jones did a sterling job to remember all the lines, but could have done with more variation in tone and timbre, so as to better express the wrought emotion of the poems.