ABOUT:

​You can take an artist out of Sweden. But you can’t take Sweden out of an artist. Living, walking, breathing and singing proof to this testimonial is Emma Elisabeth Harper (born Dittrich. A longtime Berlin-based, now Sweden-bound artist with the freewheeling spirit of the seventies and the northern sense of foreboding melancholy circulating through her sublimely crafted indie songs. After growing up surrounded by instruments, playing in various bands and majoring in vocal studies at prestigious Kulturama in Stockholm, Emma Elisabeth embraced the great wide open and traveled the world. She has been traveling and making music in London, Paris or the United States, where she was invited to play renowned SXSW festival, and she even toured Japan with one of her bands before she decided to settle in Berlin – temporarily, that is. “Being a traveling musician, you can pack your gear and you can practically work everywhere,” she says. Ending up in Berlin was a mere coincidence, a spur-of-the-moment thing just like most of her remarkably clever career moves. “One day I got introduced to a publishing company that I ended up signing with, and that was based in Berlin.” She shrugs. “And I stayed.” As Queen put it: Anywhere the wind blows. In the midst of this bustling German metropolis, the solitaire built camp with all the right people to work with. Berlin or elsewhere: Emma Elisabeth is perpetually inspired. By her own life, by the people revolving around her, by the mundane and the magic. She’s constantly working on music, constantly writing, evolving, reflecting. She’s writing her own material, she’s composing score for films and writing songs for other artists. Her 2016 release “Cover Stories” showcased her love of music through a wide range of grand and bittersweet cover versions, “Melancholic Milkshake” (2019) subsisted on her passion for the guitar-driven jangle pop sounds of the sixties and seventies. Whatever she’s doing, however, is marked by a certain brooding sense of northern-hemisphere melancholy. “It’s definitely my Swedish nature,” she says with a grin. “It’s deep within my bones. I once went to an art exhibition in my hometown which was called ‘Scandinavian Pain’. That’s it. I guess we’re all very prone to that kind of feeling.”Her sophomore album “Some Kind Of Paradise” was no exception to this rule. Quite the contrary: While it showed all the insignia of a timeless pop record from the golden days of songwriting craft, it radiates a wistful, bittersweet, dramatic aura. “We Swedes don’t seem to be able to get rid of it,” she laughs. “I mean, even most of the ABBA songs are rather melancholic. And what can I say, I enjoy that kind of music. It’s as simple as that. What's interesting for me is taking the true color that you have and letting it get influenced by different environments. For example, matching Swedish sadness with Majorcan sun. Indeed, the melancholy even didn’t leave her when she was living and working on a farm on the island in the first couple of months of 2021. Any color you like. As long as it’s real. “It’s like it gets soaked up and blends into a completely new shade,” she says.  “I just don't want to use my head too much,” she muses. “I try to be as heartfelt as possible. I love music that doesn't try to be too intelligent just for the sake of it.” Influenced by the pantheon of classic artists like Fleetwood Mac or Patti Smith, Emma Elisabeth flavours her very own take on archetypal songwriting craft with her love of vocal melodies the way The Mamas and the Papas or ABBA use. Or, as she puts it: “I try to balance out my pop melodies with darker sounds and jangling guitars.” Oh my does she, joining ranks with her sister in spirit, Sharon van Etten, by delivering soaring, blooming, artisan indie songs that wear their sadness like a crown. With her 2025 upcoming album, "a sudden break in the clouds", the looming rainclouds break apart for some moments of sunshine, where Emma Elisabeth sings about returning home, searching for and finding one self, unconditional love and breaking up with people and places that are no good for you. An organic, living album which was recorded live on tape with her long time band members in the Clouds Hill Studio in Hamburg.