I get music submissions every day and it usually makes me feel two types of way: bored in advance when I know the sender and their name is not a token of quality, or anxious when the message is lovely, leaving me hopeful for a good song. Thank God, Esmé‘s Come With Me was just like her email: warm, non intrusive yet intimate, with a quiet and peaceful aura.
Esmé is an Australian independent singer/songwriter from Sydney whose independent and ambitious character speaks a lot to me: born in a family of eight children, she learned to take fate into her own hands. Homeschooled until her teenage years, she taught her vocal chords how to manipulate air and her fingers how to travel on the piano keys, while listening to pioneer jazz vocalists Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald. “I love that the singers from this era had so much emotion in their voices and what defined their tones was so deep it can’t be explained technically, like the huskiness of Billie Holiday or the warm breathy sound produced by Ella Fitzgerald”, she pointed out. And just like her musical influences, Esmé gracefully manages to pour all her individuality and sensitivity into her entrancing sound, as demonstrated in her debut single Come With Me, off an upcoming 7-track EP . “I wanted to create an intimacy between singer and listener, something organic and honest to my sound, while drawing inspiration from artist’s that I love like Moses Sumney, Nick Hakim and Lianne La Havas, she explained. With three chords and just an idea of a melody, we headed into the studio and created Come With Me in the moment. This song is about being intrigued and attracted to someone and asking them to follow you in a come hither kind of way.”
Along with her deliciously unsure charm, her unusual and distinctive voice will throw you off to later enchant you and this is precisely what I like in this stripped-down ballad to be released on all streaming platforms on December 1: Esmé is elegant but never arrogant.
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