Emei shares her most poignant song yet, "9 LIVES"
EMEI SHARES NEW BALLAD
“9 LIVES” - LISTEN
NEW EP RABBITHOLE ARRIVES NOVEMBER 15, 2024
THE RABBITHOLE TOUR BEGINS IN 2025, FOLLOWING A YEAR OF COMPLETELY SOLD-OUT SHOW
EMEI LIVE ON
THE RABBITHOLE TOUR
FEBRUARY
4 - Cologne, GER - Die Kantine
6 - Munich, GER - Hansa 39
7 - Vienna, AUST - WUK
9 - Prague, CZECH - Rock Cafe
10 - Warsaw, GER - NIEBO
11 - Berlin, GER - Festsaal Kreuzberg
13 - Stockholm, SE - Bar Brooklyn
14 - Copenhagen, DK - Ideal Bar
15 - Hamburg, GER - Kent Club
17 - Haarlem, NL - Patronaat
18 - Paris, FR - La Machine du Moulin Rouge
20 - Manchester, UK - Gorilla
21 - Dublin, IRE - Academy Green Room
23 - Glasgow, UK - King Tut’s
26 - London, UK - Heaven
MARCH
3 - San Francisco, CA - Independent
6 - Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret
7 - Portland, OR - Holocene
8 - Seattle, WA - Crocodile
11 - Salt Lake City, UT - Kilby Court
12 - Denver, CO - Bluebird Theatre
14 - Minneapolis, MN - Fine Line
15 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
16 - Chicago, IL- Lincoln Hall
18 - Toronto, ON - Velvet
19 - Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz
21 - Boston, MA - Brighton Music Hall
22 - New York, NY - Irving Plaza
25 - Philadelphia, PA - Foundry @ Fillmore
26 - Washington, D.C. - Atlantis
28 - Nashville, TN - Basement East
29 - Atlanta, GA - Vinyl
31 - Houston, TX - HOB - Bronze
APRIL
1 - Dallas, TX - House of Blues (Cambridge Room)
2 - Austin, TX - Antone’s
4 - Phoenix, AZ - Crescent
5 - Los Angeles, CA - Fonda Theatre
Following a jam-packed year of sold-out shows internationally, Emei is excited to share the final preview of her upcoming EP, RABBITHOLE, due November 15. Available everywhere now is “9 LIVES,” a rare ballad that showcases her ability to infuse vulnerability into catchy hooks and her trademark witty lyricism. The centerpiece of forthcoming RABBITHOLE, today’s single is one of the most heartbreakingly honest Emei tracks yet.
LISTEN TO “9 LIVES”
PRE-SAVE RABBITHOLE
Following the immense success of Emei’s debut album, SCATTERBRAIN, which earned 80 Million streams on Spotify alone and critical praise from the likes of Billboard, People, and Ones to Watch, RABBITHOLE and singles like “9 LIVES,” “ALL THESE KIDS” and “RABBITHOLE” solidify the early star’s place as one to watch in the contemporary pop landscape.
LISTEN TO “ALL THESE KIDS”
LISTEN TO “RABBITHOLE"
Emei spent the first part of this year performing sold-out shows in Europe and at beloved venues in major US cities, such as Los Angeles, CA’s El Rey Theater and New York, NY’s Gramercy Theater. She just finished a sold-out run of her first Australian headline shows ever, followed by performances at Austin City Limits in Austin, TX and MetaMoon Music Festival in Brooklyn, NY. THE RABBITHOLE TOUR begins next year and includes stops across Europe and North America. For more information, a full list of Emei's live dates are below.
A trip down a rabbit hole is often a dark and confusing descent into madness. Going down one means leaning into your own insanity. Getting stuck in one is letting it take over. But for those equipped with the will to pull themselves out, the reward at the end can be profound: a moment of clarity that gives way to personal transformation.
Two years after breaking TikTok with her slinky hit “Late To The Party,” rapidly rising alt-pop confessionalist Emei has fallen down her own rabbit hole and undergone a metamorphosis. Following the release of her previous widely embraced projects, End of an Era, and Scatterbrain, a challenging period of writer's block and creative renewal has brought the Los Angeles-based songwriter to return with her most ambitious, and intimate, offering yet.
RABBITHOLE, her glossy, high-octane third EP, is a journey within a journey, thematically traipsing through the darkest depths of her psyche, touching on anxiety, insecurity, and madness with hyper-relatable lyricism, wit, and perspective. But its creation was also transformative as it ushered in a blossoming artistic era for the singer. Loosely inspired by the classic bildungsroman Alice In Wonderland, it’s her first-ever concept project. “I spent the past year or two really developing and figuring out my sound, the visuals,” she says. “On the career side of things, [RABBITHOLE] feels very much like a project that I had to go through. It’s Emei 2.0. It reflects this period of growing up and becoming the person that I'm supposed to be.”
Structured like an anxiety spiral, the six-track project opens on the vibrant punch of “RABBITHOLE,” her metaphorical fall into the titular pit that’s part anxiety diary and breathwork meditation. By the time the EP’s energetic closing track comes around, Emei has completed a redemptive 360. “All of [the songs] are like going through this journey of going down into panic and anxiety and then coming out of it,” she says.
They’re familiar and acute themes for the 24-year-old songwriter, whose previous releases like “Irresponsible” and “Better People To Leave On Read,” painted her an especially illuminated diagnoser of the Gen Z condition. “I’ve always been a pretty anxious girl,” she says.
She considers it a symptom of growing up as a child to immigrants and the only creative in a STEM-filled family. Raised in New Jersey by Chinese parents in engineering and accounting, she had the value of hard work distilled into her early, alongside more personal notions to excel. Today, it’s her ambition that fuels her rapidly-growing career from TikTok singer to international touring artist — but also her creeping feelings of self-doubt. “Touring is my favorite thing about my job,” she says. “But when I announce a show, I'm immediately like, I have to sort it out in the first few minutes. I always ask myself, ‘What's the worst-case scenario?”
On RABBITHOLE, big questions like that one abound. “How many times can I say I’m sorry/ How many times will you take me back,” she wonders on the twangy heartbreak ballad, “NINE LIVES,” notable as her first release to venture into an acoustic sound. Written post a fight with her boyfriend, it encapsulates the inner turmoil of realizing she’s “not a very considerate person,” she says.
Mid-album thumper “ALL THESE KIDS,” meanwhile, takes aim at the rich, clout-chasing party kids of Los Angeles — “All these kids wanna ride for free/ Ride, ride, ride on my coattail swing,” she delivers in an acerbic sing-song. Between the lines, however, it reveals a growing doubt about her social circle.
RABBITHOLE undoubtedly traverses heavy themes, but its songs never lose itself to dourness, in large part due to Emei’s songwriting which carries within it a certain youthful je ne sais quais, an endearing nonchalance. She’s serious but she’s also silly as she coos, “Spoonful of sugar makes the boys go woo,” on “SUGARCOAT,” the EP’s upward turning point.
“I'm not writing these crazy, poetic lyrics. I always get the ick from that for some reason,” she says of her songwriting approach. “For me, these are like journal entries. This is how I feel like point-blank, and if you fuck with it, you fuck with it.”
That realness packs a punch on “THE PART,” the EP’s pummeling, redemptive closer about putting in the work to reach your full potential: “It feels like Alice eating a tiny little cookie that makes her grow 10x,” Emei says.
It’s a snapshot of Emei at the current place of her own musical journey as she puts in the work to reach her own full artistic potential. Markers of her growth are visible in the album’s credits as she continues to strengthen her creative relationships with producers Boy Blue, Timfromthehouse, Matt Kahane, and more. While the record’s visual side also sees her bringing aspects of her heritage — the color red, which symbolizes everything from celebration to success in China, as well as braids, a hairstyle from her childhood — into her music.
Taking stock of her journey, Emei breathlessly says, “I feel like I've unlocked a part of me that I haven't really done before. It's an exaggerated, bigger version of who I am.”
It’s her hard-earned reward for daring to descend the rabbit hole.
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