Emma Victoria Jane Anderson (born 10 June 1967) is an English musician. She is a songwriter, and was guitarist and singer in the shoegazing/Britpop band Lush.

Early life

Born in Wimbledon, London, the adopted daughter of a former army officer who ran a gentleman's club in Piccadilly, Anderson attended several schools before taking her O-Levels at Queen's College, where she met Miki Berenyi. As keen music fans, they wrote a fanzine called Alphabet Soup.

Musical career

Anderson's first band, which she joined in 1986, was the Rover Girls (which featured Chris P Mowforth and Stuart Watson, who were both later in Silverfish) as a bass player.

Anderson and Berenyi became major music press celebrities as part of The Scene That Celebrates Itself. Music magazines the NME and Melody Maker gleefully reported their social activities on a regular basis, which could be said to overshadow their increasingly strong songwriting. As drummer Chris Acland stated, "people seem to want to talk about Lush's relationship to the press more than they want to talk about Lush."

Of the sound of Lush, Emma said, "We were kind of punk rock in one way. We did think 'Well, if they can do it, why the fuck can't we?' Basically, our idea was to have extremely loud guitars with much weaker vocals. And, really the vocals were weaker due to nervousness – we'd always be going 'Turn them down! Turn them down!'."

In 1997, Anderson formed a new band with vocalist Lisa O'Neill, Sing-Sing. Emma explained how it started, "I just started writing songs not really knowing what was going to happen though I kind of knew I didn't want to form another 4-piece indie band. I demoed those songs for 4AD with myself singing but was dropped but I wasn't fazed. I then met Lisa O'Neill via a guy I was going out with at the time. She had worked with Mark Van Hoen whom funnily enough, someone I knew said, was looking for collaborators so it kind of all fell into place and Sing-Sing was born."

Anderson joined in reforming Lush in 2015, releasing a four-track EP, Blind Spot, in early 2016.

In July 2023 it was announced that Anderson's debut solo album Pearlies would be released on 20 October 2023 through label Sonic Cathedral. A remix album, Spiralée (Pearlies Rearranged), was released on 18 October 2024.

Discography

Lush

  • Scar (mini-LP) – October 1989
  • Gala - November 1990
  • Spooky – January 1992
  • Split – June 1994
  • Lovelife – March 1996
  • Blind Spot EP – April 2016

Sing-Sing

  • The Joy of Sing-Sing – 2001
  • Sing-Sing and I – 2005

Solo

  • Pearlies – 2023
  • Spiralée: Pearlies Rearranged – 2024

References

  • Sing-Sing's MySpace
  • 4AD Lush Page