Two decades ago, Emma Niblett was a Nottingham kid kitted out in a Relax
T-shirt. In 2005, she's come so far as to be able to offer up her own
song called "Relax," but, rather than singing about trying to rein in
imminent ejaculation, the lass — now called Scout — is singing about
trying to not force her artistic voice, singing this to the accompanying
strums of the frailest guitar. And, by the way she sings of her "little
voice," in her little voice — a voice that's quite Cat Power-esque (and
given
that this song plays, briefly, with the imagery of losing the pitch of
one's singing in the mix coming through the cans, and then freaking out,
it's quite the apt comparison) — you figure that the artistic voice and
Scout's little voice are one and the same. But when she repeats the
refrain "Come on, Scout, relax/ Nothing's yours anyway," those lines
offer an interesting insight into her aesthetic. Initially, it seems
like a case of referring-to-self-in-the-third-person driven by either
nuttiness or hilariousness, but soon it sets in that Niblett is singing
about an artistic voice that dwells within her, that broadcasts through
her, but that isn't actually hers. To these ears, it's the first time
on her three-album/two-EP career that Niblett — whose songs set her
singing to mostly just delicate guitar or bashed percussion — has hinted
that this Scout business is artifice, that her penchant for wearing wigs
on stage, and for creating an almost mythical persona, is a ritualistic
way of tuning into the transmission of this schizophrenic voice, a
voice from within that Emma has decided to distance herself from by
calling it Scout, a name pulled from the pages of To Kill a
Mockingbird. On this, her third disc, we witness a strange dance
between Emma and Scout, there being songs here where, in pure Scout
mode, she sings those silly lyrics (from "DJ Deathprince of Now is her
name/ Hot to death/ It gets hot to death" to "I was so excited/ Just to be
in your car/ O!, fuck Treasure Island!"), and there being others where it
seems like the songsmith, as herself, is pleadingly searching for her
impish muse (a muse who, if we're to read between the ridiculous lines,
was at some stage kidnapped by Neptune). "Pompoms" finds Niblett
asking: "Does anybody know a cute girl with some pompoms?/ ...because
everybody needs someone to spell out their name, in the little song";
this references those past tunes (like "Linus," from the "I Conjure
Series" gear, or "It's All for You", from her last longplayer, the cutely
titled I Am) where Scout's spelt-out cheerleader chants and butch
backbeats have made for a righteous Bee. The opening sentiments of
"It's All for You" — "Oh, sweet lifer, I tremble but my course does
not" — are evoked again on this disc's closing cut, "Where Are You?",
which also revisits that same sense of "home" (and, perhaps, the him
waiting at home) as inspiration, with Niblett pledging to return to her
"loving home of silence" as Emma once she's through making her
"fucking noise" as Scout.
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