EMA could not have picked a more grabby first single for her new album Exile In The Outer Ring than a song called “Aryan Nation.” According to the artist, the new song is directed at a rage-filled white working class who have pointed their anger in the wrong direction. The first single from the The Future’s Void singer’s first album since 2014 hopes to reach out to skinheads and set them on the right path.
“I actually wrote this song about three years ago,’ she said. “It was partially inspired by people I’ve known in the past and also the British film This Is England, which most people in the UK are familiar with but hardly any Americans have seen. In the movie a group of non-racist UK skinheads in the ’80s are radicalized into violence through prison, poverty, and needless war. The results are violent and tragic. When I watched it I felt like I recognized a glimmer of their hopelessness and confusion in parts of America, but I had no clue how much that would explode in 2017.”
EMA — who is from Middle America herself — said that she feels the pain that many people there are living through. But wants them to know that there are other ways to express it beyond becoming nativists and racists.
“This is for my people in the middle country,” she said. “I don’t look down on, or laugh at, serious issues such as poverty or drug problems. I believe your situations are real, your pain is real. I’m not here to ridicule or dismiss you. But as a person who came from heartland America, I also believe that there is another way than directing your anger at those who often have less power than you. Don’t let your discontent or your patriotism be exploited. Don’t look down, look up.”
“Aryan Nation” is our first glimpse of Exile, which is due out on City Slang on August 25. In addition to the lyric video for “Nation”, EMA shared the tracklist of the new album which promises to take on gender politics and working-class struggle with equal fervor. Check out the tracklist –which does not contain her recent Ghostship benefit single –below:
1.”7 Years”
2. “Breathalyzer”
3. “I Wanna Destroy”
4. “Blood and Chalk”
5. “Down and Out”
6. “Fire Water Air LSD”
7. “Aryan Nation”
8. “33 Nihilistic and Female”
9. “Receive Love”
10. “Always Bleeds”
11. “Where The Darkness Began”
