When a stand-alone guitar riff meets you at the door, it’s time to welcome in the pure, unadulterated emotion it’s brought along with it. In this case, it’s Canadian artist Emily Molloy and her raw, emotive-packed new single, “Wide Awake,” and her new EP, Catastrophes — available now.
A fixture in the indie music community of the West Coast, Vancouver’s Emily Molloy is a trifecta of talent. From exciting and enduring song writing, to her flawless execution and powerhouse vocals, to her captivating visuals on-screen and on-stage, Molloy employs a host of truth to the notes she writes and performs.
Further, her commitment to telling the whole story leaves the listener with relatability; her authenticity lends credence to her words, and she captivates audiences by providing solace in understanding with her songs.
That very notion is exposed loud and clear on Molloy’s latest offering, “Wide Awake” — a song about heartbreak, about resolve, about the anguish of accepting love lost.
Written in under an hour, Molloy was emboldened by a break-up experienced by award-winning director Angie Nolan. Finding perspective through Nolan’s pain, Molloy packs each emotional punch with her raspy, full-bodied vox; each resolve in the lyrics a little more hurt than the last until she scales the note so hard in the bridge, you can feel in your soul the shattering of her heart. Molloy perfectly embodies a wailing wall of sorrow and sadness in one fell swoop.
“After writing ‘Wide Awake’, I remember thinking to myself, ‘Wait…I’m not going through this myself, but Angie is,’” she recalls. “I realised I had written the song about her, and from her perspective, but that we can all relate.”
Enlisting recording engineer Eric Mosher at the Warehouse Studios in 2020, Molloy quickly realized that “Wide Awake” was the stand-out track on her latest EP. “This is my most vulnerable song recorded to date, and I knew I needed a video that would fully capture the story and emotion expressed. The song turned out more beautifully stunning in the studio than I could ever hoped for, and it screamed for its visual equal.”
Having dreamt the storyboard for the music video, and with Angie Nolan at the helm of directing, “Wide Awake” premiered in August of 2021. A winter landscape following Molloy wandering through the woods, as a healing warrior dances on a frozen lake, the video captures the suffocation of loss, but the empowerment of letting go and accepting freedom from grief.
“Because for some reason I had the dream about a winter landscape, we filmed the video in Whistler on Alta Lake while it was frozen,” Molloy explains. “Jenna Manzanares beautifully embodied the role of the healed/warrior version of myself. Strong and insanely powerful, she dances in the open and freeing expanse (while I am still stuck in the woods).
“I am both incredibly honoured and proud to have such an amazingly talented person showcase her talent in this music video, she’s a freaking star. Jenna was on the ice in a spandex bodysuit for hours, freezing her butt off without complaint. At the same time, I was getting my makeup done, unaware of the impending cold. Both Jenna and I ended up laying in ice puddles on a frozen lake for hours with very little clothing.”
“The emotion seen and felt in the video is 100% authentic,” Molloy continues, “I’ve never acted before, and this experience gave me such a massive new perspective on what it means to be a performer. I am crying, for real, in the video. I am really feeling the feelings in the video.”
The viewer will relate. The listener will get it. The lingering electric guitar only fills the gap behind Molloy’s insanely tremendous vocals; she doesn’t need any instrumentation to find the melody in the music. Emily Molloy’s voice shines like a beacon above the backdrop. You believe every word. You are every word.
“Over time, I feel like this song has not only related to my life, but is relatable to so many others,” Emily Molloy muses. “We all experience hurt, trauma, and pain; but learning to channel that energy into creative expression of any form helps turn that trauma into beauty.”
Open your eyes to see beyond the heartache. Emily Molloy challenges you to be “Wide Awake”.
“Wide Awake” and Catastrophes are available now.
