E. R. Thorpe

E.R. Thorpe was raised on the blues in the place where folk music, full of rage and fragile beauty, goes back to the source. She has shaped her own evocative sound, delivering pin drop performances. Sometimes wilfully naive, sometimes considered and precise - her choice of chords is particular and unusual and her finger picking weaves a strange atmosphere – the likes of which you’d more likely find in a Lynch film or a novel by Bolano than in the sculpted folk of her inspirations.

With a ragged edge that has more in common with Nick Cave, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey and William Blake than the obvious comparisons, she muses on nature and religion, God and the devil, good and evil, revealing both the beauty and devastation of life. These are songs born of deep tradition, but alive in the present day, revealing and fragile, executed spare and sharp.

As a frequent collaborator, she’s the voice that haunts and caresses many Torn Sail tracks, a silver lining to Mark Lanegan’s heart-breaking cloud on “Ricochets” from the “The Short Sweet Life” album.

Alongside Torn Sail’s Huw Costin and Matt Hill, she makes up The Low Drift, a folk group travelling beyond the ‘Keep Out’ signs, to the ancient green lanes and sunken tracks where their ancestors’ buried bones lie undiscovered.

Emma's new album, This is Human Love, is scheduled for release in March 2026 and we're delighted to welcome her to Applestump Records to celebrae .the release.