‘to earth will you tell me when we land’: Pem announces a new EP with another stunner
In this line of work, it’s inevitable that a lot of people ask me what new artists they should listen to. Each and every time, I say Pem. With her new single, ‘to earth will you tell me when we land’, she delivers more evidence as to why.
Pem has one of those voice that feels impossible. Both on record and live, it’s a voice so unique and so full of emotion that it silences everything around in. In venues, it becomes pin drop quiet as no one would dare to interrupt with their own singalongs. Listening in headphones, the street becomes nothing but an ambient accompaniment.
I’ve never been surer giving a perfect five out of five than I was granting it to Pem’s 2024 EP, Cloud Work as she mused on loss and grief with such poignancy and such beauty, both from her lyricism to her instruments. Since then, the string of singles she’s shared have only got better and better.
Now, ‘to earth will you tell me when we land’ is a new golden delivery. Much like on ‘M4 Windy’, there is a simplicity at play here. The instrumental is stunning as she brings in a string section for some orchestral story, but nothing gets in the way of her voice to keep her talent right in the spotlight. Like that latest single too, the lyrics are moving but simple too, not feeling the need to over-write emotion or hide what she actually wants to say too much. Instead, the feelings are more straight-talking, but still beautifully put.
This new track comes as Pem announces a new EP, other ways of landing, to be released in January. Talking about the themes of the new body of work, the artist contemplated her rootlessness and foundation of her own life lately as an artist, a gardener and simply as a person, stating, “I moved house 7 times last year but returned to the same gardens every week. This is a portrait of my time spent attending the natural world, it’s rhythms and cycles of change.”
As the era opening song, ‘to earth will you tell me when we land’ considers these points, balancing between celestial contemplations into simple, plain talking questions before surrendering to a hopeful, or delusional, or desperate trust in the universe to take care of things.
So my answer for the question remains the same. If there’s one artist i’m backing, or one i’m saying you should listen to, it’s Pem.
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