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Influenced by her father's Joni Mitchell, Rickie Lee Jones, and Sandy Denny record collection, Emily Barker is an Australian singer/songwriter who came up in the U.K. chamber folk scene. After releasing her debut album, Photos. Fires. Fables., in 2006, her songs "Nostalgia" and "Pause" were used as themes for the BBC crime dramas Wallander (2008-2016) and The Shadow Line (2011), respectively. Following a string of collaborations with the acoustic trio the Red Clay Halo, her diverse third solo LP, 2017 Sweet Kind of Blue, expressed pop and soul influences including Motown and Brill Building pop. Themes of empathy dominated her gentler sixth album, 2024's Fragile as Humans.

Born in Bridgetown, a small rural town in southwest Australia, Barker began her musical career when she moved to England in 2002 and teamed up with guitarist Rob Jackson (Eddi Reader) to form the Low Country. The duo recorded two albums, Welcome to the Low Country and The Dark Road, before Barker decided to pursue a solo career. She released her debut LP, Photos. Fires. Fables., in 2006 on her own Everyone Sang label.

After recruiting the cello, violin, and musical saw trio of Anna Jenkins, Jo Silverston, and Gill Sandell, aka the Red Clay Halo, she released Despite the Snow in 2008. Its opening track, "Nostalgia," was chosen as the theme song to Kenneth Branagh's Wallander, the BAFTA-winning U.K. adaptation of the original Swedish series. Another album with the Red Clay Halo, Almanac, arrived in February 2011 and included the haunting ballad "Pause." It was selected as the theme to the BBC miniseries The Shadow Line, which aired that year. Still self-releasing her music on Everyone Sang, the Calum Malcolm-produced Dear River (with the Red Clay Halo) followed in 2013.

Marked by rich vocal harmonies, she formed the folk-pop trio Vena Portae with Dom Coyote and Ruben Engzell and issued the Vena Portae LP in 2014. Barker released the stripped-back solo album The Toerag Sessions a year later, then partnered with Amy Speace and Amber Rubarth for 2016's Applewood Road, the self-titled debut of the acoustic vocal three-piece. Barker's third solo LP, Sweet Kind of Blue, came out in 2017 featuring a bolder presentation that counted blues, Motown, and Brill Building pop among its influences.

Wedding folk and pop, Barker teamed up with Marry Waterson for the 2019 duo album A Window to Other Ways, and she re-enlisted the Red Clay Halo for Shadow Box, released later the same year. Barker's fourth solo album, the Greg Freeman-produced A Dark Murmuration of Words, marked a return to more rustic solo territory in 2020. Her next long-player, 2021's Flight Path Rhymes, consisted of reimagined versions of A Dark Murmuration's track list interspersed with poetry readings. Her husband, Lukas Drinkwater, engineered, mixed, and co-produced the set. In 2022, Drinkwater and Barker released the covers album Room 822, a product of pandemic lockdowns in Australia while on tour. It included versions of songs originally by the Church, Silverchair, Stella Donnelly, and others.

Written and recorded as her two decades in the U.K. were winding down, Fragile as Human, Barker's sixth solo LP, was heavily informed by isolation and compassion. Recorded with producer/mixer Luke Potashnick (Alberta Cross, Gabrielle Aplin), keyboardist Richard Causon, bassist Tim Harries (Steeleye Span), and drummer Tom Visser, it arrived on Everyone Sang in 2024. Following promotion of the album in the U.K., she moved back to Australia. ~ Marcy Donelson & Jon O'Brien