From a young age, Emma-Jean Thackray always knew she wanted to be an artist — no matter the medium. Speaking on a video chat from a hotel room in Glasgow, she tells me she never wavered in that conviction. “At no point have I ever thought, ‘I don’t know if I can do this.’ It was always just like 100% I’m doing this.” Her eyes, framed by thick-framed circular tortoiseshell glasses, are steady with that same certainty.

Thackray began sketching out Weirdo, the follow-up to 2022’s Yellow, as a reflection on her experience as neurodivergent. Then, in January 2023, her longtime partner passed away, and everything stopped. Thackray eventually found her way back to the album she’d conceptualized a year prior, but with a new level of urgency. The project about self-acceptance transformed into a grief diary — one that ultimately saved her life.

“When the big life event happens, things shift a little bit, and you question things,” she says. “Not that I question being an artist. It was just like questioning everything. It was just like, What is the point of any of this? I don’t want to be here, is what I was thinking. But then to find my way back to music and realize just how important it is for me was very affirming.”

As a whole, Weirdo is brilliantly fearless. Thackray’s sprawling, pointed jazz fusion compositions are a vibrant backdrop for her diaristic lyrics that wrestle with grief, existence, death, and growth. There are songs that are unable to get out of bed. There are songs about a loved one’s death making you want to face your own. There are songs about the simple nutrition of tofu. Pre-grief, Thackray understood she had to turn an album into her label Brownswood Recordings. But as Weirdo’s creation evolved, Thackray was distanced from the fact she’d be sharing these extremely vulnerable songs with an audience. “Even if only I heard it, I think it would still be the most important music I’ve made,” she says. “It saved my life to make it.”

Stream Weirdo and read our conversation below.

1. “Something Wrong With Your Mind”

How did this become the starting point?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: The whole starting point and seed of the album was about speaking on and making music about my neurodiversity and trying to find acceptance in myself. Not even just acceptance, but celebrate it. I do feel like I have a bit of a nuts brain; it’s like a bunch of screaming monkeys most of the time. I often have that feeling like there’s something wrong with my mind. That’s just how I feel: I feel broken most of the time. Why is everything so difficult for me to just be alive? Why does it feel like so, so much? It felt right to put it at the beginning.

You’re not dipping your toes into the record; you’re just jumping straight in the water because you’ve got this big riff, the big guitars. I think the tone of the track with the backing vocals and the nuts synth that’s going on as well. It feels like it encapsulates a lot of the sound world of the record. I wanted to put it at the beginning, not just because it was the seed of the record, but, sonically as well, it really just throws you in the deep end.

The album takes these themes of being an outsider and sort of flips them. Even though the album is peppered with self-doubt, it does seem that you’ve always been self-accepting or supportive of yourself even though that might not be the case.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: In some ways, I have been self-accepting because I’m here. I’m doing what I’m doing. But I think there’s always a tension with myself. You can identify the things about you that you dislike or that other people might dislike, and know the reasons for them, and know that they’re not your fault, and still dislike yourself. So it’s a constant tension. And I really wanted to get to a point of feeling not just an acceptance, but a celebration. Because this idea of balance that I have, it’s not just in the music. It’s about everything and in the world, like good, the good and the bad, everything has got this like duality to it. I can only do what I’m doing and only be this artist because of the stuff about myself that I dislike, although people might like or find it difficult, or whatever it is.

2. “Weirdo”

There’s a lot of repetition on the album. I think it works in different and beautiful ways. It kind of evolves throughout, either creating an anxious effect or a calming one. There’s all these different kinds of tones. It felt like this track was almost like an auditory illusion as well. And I don’t know if that’s an accurate read—

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: In what way, the illusion?

From what I understand, I know that you lost your partner when you were creating this, and if it gets too heavy, or you don’t want to talk about anything, we can totally pivot. But it just felt like my brain kept hearing “widow” at the same time as hearing “weirdo.” I don’t know if that happened after reading the bio and the context. It felt like a weird, trippy moment when you hear a word so much that it transforms.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: That makes sense, because obviously English accents are non rhotic, so we don’t lean on our R’s. That would make sense for it to sound like that. There is definitely repetition across the record, and some of it is to create an effect of showing my anxious state. Some of it is to calm myself, as you said, like, you totally nailed that. I really like a lot of music that incorporates chanting. So that could be Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, even Roy Ayers at points.

The music that can bring spirituality and those kinds of rituals into music is really interesting to me. I’ve definitely done that for quite a while, whether it’s “Movementt” or some tracks on Yellow having, like these chanty things that are prevalent through it. There’s definitely that throughout this as well, but maybe not as much, because I’m leaning more into the diary-esque stream of consciousness way of writing. But I still come back to that, because some things just need to be said again.

The repetition in the first half is questioning that feeling of being an outsider and why that feels so uncomfortable. And then it’s an acceptance for the last minute or so, which is really cool.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I wanted to show a sort of journey of that and make it sound like I’m saying it to maybe my younger self, someone else, or actually just saying it to me in the mirror. It’s still a journey to do that. I still don’t feel like I’ve fully accepted being neurodiverse in all the different ways that I am.

“Weirdo” is actually the first track that I wrote for the record. I wrote it in 2021, or at least started to as I was finishing the Yellow album. I knew it was for the next record, and I wanted to lean more into jazz fusion, do more on the guitar and lean more to the synth to step away from the strings, the horns, just lean more into the rhythm section.

Obviously, the intention of the record kind of changed in a way. It started as being about accepting different mental health struggles and became a grief diary. Overall, it’s about my own survival and resilience. So yeah, maybe just call it a survival album in a way.

3. “Stay”

This is one of the first big shifts in the album.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: “Stay” is a heavy one, a difficult one to talk about. It’s about like the worst possible thing, and writing it was a real, I guess, catharsis, because it feels impossible to talk about, but it feels easier to sing about. Weirdly, when I was making the whole record, at no point did I kind of understand that I would have to share this with other people. [Laughs] I, very selfishly, wanted to make it for myself, needed to make it for myself. And then after it was finished, got the master and gave it to the label like, “Here you go.” Then I was like, “I’m gonna have to sing this to people. I’m gonna have to sing these words. This is gonna be really difficult.”

I think in that song, and a couple of others, you can really hear that this has been a therapy to undertake. I remember playing that bass line over and over again, quite a meditative way, and feeling comforted by it. The chords don’t change very much for most of the song, so it was a nice sort of meditative thing to feel the gentleness of the chord sequence, and then at the end everything shifts. I’m not actually changing key, but it sounds a little bit like I’m changing keys with that sort of big ending with — the power chords, the sound opens up and, like, it’s like this choral thing going on. There’s a couple of head-banging moments in the record that should help people, because they’re cathartic. At the end there’s the big guitar solo and I’m hoping that people sort of feel like, ahhh! — a release.

In a previous interview, you discussed how guitar feels like its own kind of language or vessel for anger or heavier emotions. Is that correct?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Yeah, there’s a reason why people find the guitar quite angry typically. I think it’s just because the way that you perceive the sound is very immediate. It can feel quite violent in some capacity, depending on how you sculpt the tone of the guitar. If there’s lots of high frequencies, it can feel very cutting like a knife. If you take off the high frequencies, it can feel very mellow — what you would more associate with jazz. And I think I’ve found something that incorporates both of those at different points.

Why did it feel like it was necessary to put a guitar solo here?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Everything had been quite steady throughout that track before, like riffs that are repeating. Then it felt, actually, that those riffs were actually building attention by being repeated, and they needed to be released somehow. So that’s why I sort of changed the chord sequence and opened up the sound. Things got heavier because of wanting to release that tension and having that moment of things feeling very weighty sonically. What better way to find catharsis than to do a guitar solo? [Laughs] and kick in the distortion and just go for it.

There’s so many different synths and guitars. And then, I think it’s 10 different vocal parts, maybe even more. There’s a lot happening. Sometimes with a solo, when there’s a lot happening, to be heard, the notes need to go higher in frequency to cut through and sail above everything.

4. “Let Me Sleep”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Lyrically, that’s just how I just felt. I wanted to go to sleep forever, which I’m sure a lot of people will attest to. There’s different things happening at the same time in different time signatures, and that can feel quite chaotic. So it needed to be held together with this drum beat [da doom da doom] which I wanted to feel like a heartbeat. But also does a lot in terms of, keeping everything connected that could feel quite chaotic without that sort of grounding drum beat.

There’s not a lot of brass across the record, but where there is brass are quite important moments. I do play trumpet. Singing is my first instrument, but trumpet is like my first instrument. And I think where I am playing it is quite important in terms of these are the moments that I’m really sort of trying to connect myself, because it’s been difficult to play, a little bit too exposing to play the trumpet over the past couple years. I’ve been selective with where I’ve used it.

Growing up in Yorkshire, there’s a brass band sound that’s so prevalent. It feels almost like a lullaby to me. It’s a very powerful sound, and it can be very sweet; it can be very menacing. It sort of feels like the earth in the way of like it can be so beautiful and so violent at the same time. So I wanted to harness that power of the brass band, even though it’s just me, it’s not like a bunch of other people, to feel like a lullaby, lulling you off to sleep, and then the reverb to catch and there’s that feeling of floating away as the sound sort of drifts off. That sort of let me go to sleep, but falling off to sleep, not being able to sleep. Then also that meaning of “let me sleep” having a much darker undertone to it as well; feeling like the brass is sort of taking you off somewhere else was kind of the thought behind it.

Why did it feel like the brass instruments were exposing?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It’s just with how I’m feeling at the minute, playing the trumpet feels very emotional in a way where I don’t really necessarily feel ready or equipped to play. I guess it’s just connecting with a part of yourself that you’re not ready to be with in at that moment. So yeah, it’s sparing in the record, but importantly placed.

I feel like it really captures that hard dissonance of sleep as this restful thing. But then also it can be a really almost toxic habit, or escape with depression or grief. So I totally related to that.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I think a lot of people do. I know there’s this movement going on at the minute: sleeping is luxury. But I think mostly people feel like, if you’re not being productive, you’re not worth anything. So I think admitting to that is quite difficult for people, so hopefully they can hear that and then maybe not feel so guilty.

5. “Please Leave Me Alone”

How “Let Me Sleep” ends, I kind of imagine it was falling into a different state of mind. What was the thinking behind the transition to “Please Leave Me Alone.”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I just thought that would be really funny — that juxtaposition of a peaceful sleep, the lullaby brass, and then being hit with almost like a skit. There are these diary-esque short tracks throughout. This was meant to feel like a diary. “Tofu” and “Fried Rice,” which was the only food I would cook for months and months. These sort of things are like little windows into my life and how I was living day to day.

One of them was just feeling so isolated because I was isolating myself. I mean, I’m quite an isolated loner person. Anyway, I spend 99.9% of my time alone by choice. So shutting people out and sort of trying to make it sort of a funny way to approach it felt right. That kind of sarcasm is very much in me, and making jokes about the heavy stuff is kind of something that I tend to do. It made me laugh, like with the backing vocals at the end, “How did you get this number?” I was doing that to make myself laugh.

6. “Save Me”

I feel like these three tracks live together, where it’s this push and pull of emotions.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It’s definitely what I’m going for, the balance of the heaviness with the lightness; the levity and then the bleak, stark lyrics. I’m definitely trying to have that duality there. And I think if you’re singing about something heavy, you need to have quite a catchy melody with it, or the music that’s surrounding the words needs to have an upbeat aspect to it. And I think it’s the same in how you approach the words; if you’re going to talk about something heavy, maybe try and bring some fun and some joy into it, like making a joke. If you’re just saying, “I’m really sad,” people aren’t necessarily going to pick up on that. But if you’re spinning it into more of a story, people listen more. I listened to more of myself as well when I put stuff in that way, because, as I said before, when I was making everything, I wasn’t thinking about anyone else. I was just thinking about me; I needed to make a joke for myself to help me process it.

In terms of the lyrics being more diaristic. Is that a normal approach you usually have with songwriting, or was it different for this album?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It’s different for this album. Before, it was very much about not centering myself. There were points where I was speaking about my experiences, but in a way that was still quite removed. And it was that most of my experiences were maybe presented more in an abstract way. A lot of the music I was writing was very much about the outside. It was about the universe, or it was about other people. It was about big concepts. Then this record was like, “Okay, this is about me. This is about how I’m feeling about my experience, and leaning into that means that I am going to be the center of it.” So, I need to show people about my life, what’s going on for me.

Did that feel different while making the album? Did you have a different connection with the music?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Yeah, I feel like it’s the most important record that I’ve done — the most in touch with myself I’ve ever been musically. I am very happy that it’s resonating with people. But also, in a way, I kind of don’t need that to be the case as well because it’s been so important to make this record because it saved my life to make it. Even if only I heard it, I think it would still be the most important music I’ve made.

7. “Maybe Nowhere”

What were the sonic inspirations for this song?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I grew up listening to a lot of Nirvana and Radiohead. I think I’m really channeling that sort of grunginess, the sort of more ’90s British, kind of Radiohead-Blur sound of there being these electronic aspects in there as well.

The guitar is funk-laden, but not in an actual funk way, more in a Talking Heads appropriation of funk kind of way. I’m a big Talking Heads fan. So I think the sort of rockier side of me and what I listen to comes through quite a lot in this track. Which some people have found quite unexpected being labeled a jazz musician. I am a jazz musician, but I also make a bunch of different stuff, and I like a bunch of different things as well. It’s been playlisted on a jazz station, which I thought was, like, quite unexpected. “Oh, okay, this one. This is interesting!”

Then at the end, there’s a sort of brass world that leans in again on the orchestral side. It felt like the right place to put that, because I wanted it to feel overwhelming. Like these horn riffs, and they’re placed around your head to sort of feel like it’s surrounding you. There’s all these different things happening at the same time, like three or four different vocal parts happening. A lot going on. That’s how I have been feeling, super overwhelmed, lots of stuff going on in my head, and then the reverbs and the delays build up and up and up to the point where the music is unintelligible. It ends with this reverb tale that carries on for ages and ages. This is me speculating on what it might sound like to die. So the sound world and the reverb is taking you upwards, back into the universe is how I pictured it. It’s quite a heavy track, but I think there’s some fun in there as well.

8. “What Is The Point”

It feels like every song kind of has a buddy, if that makes sense.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I wasn’t writing in that way. But when I was sequencing everything, that’s how I felt. So very early on, “Maybe Nowhere” and “What Is The Point?” need to be next to each other. Because I just feel like that really sums up the record. Especially with them being next to each other, this kind of heaviness of being like, “I want to die.” And then this sound being this is what I think it sounds like to die. And then a really nonsense track that’s full of silliness to follow it straight away. That’s exactly how it’s written: What is the fucking point of any of this? But in a way, that’s very sarcastic and very silly. And then the synth solo at the end that I just stop like what’s the fucking point?

Even though you’re singing about and referencing these really heavy existential topics, none of the songs feel super suffocating, which is interesting. Was it difficult to find a balance or reel yourself in?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I didn’t feel like I was reeling myself in consciously, but something that my psychiatrist said [Laughs] is that this is another way that I mask — by pretending to be okay when I’m not okay. So you know, go figure and psychoanalyze me [Laughs].

In general with the album sounding like everything’s okay, you mean?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Yeah, with it being quite upbeat and if you weren’t listening to the lyrics you wouldn’t know what it was about.

9. “Black Hole” (Feat. Reggie Watts)

This was one of the first songs that you started to write?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Yeah. After 2022, that was a really tricky year in terms of touring. I love playing live, but the act of touring is a fucking nightmare for me. It’s really hard to do. I felt so burnt out, and then I needed to make that because I felt like I was in a black hole. Even before I lost my partner, I wasn’t doing too good. I needed to try and find some joy and some silliness. I love P-Funk, that kind of space jazz theme is something that I’ve always been drawn towards.

I love that in P-Funk, there is a silliness that you can be your weird ass self. You can find the eccentricity of yourself. You can be like a caricature of yourself. You can be, you know, people like George Clinton or Bootsy Collins that are dressing up as these characters, but it also feels like they’re the characters of them and the rest of the time, when they’re wearing normal clothes, is when they’re pretending. When they’re on stage wearing star-shaped sunglasses is actually when they’re being their real self. That was very much the beginning of the duality of the record—yes, heaviness, but also fun, also silliness. That was when it sort of felt the most clear, like that being the path of the record.

How did you connect with Reggie?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: By being a massive fan girl, loving his work for years and years, watching all of his specials and quoting him constantly, and just knowing that he would be perfect for that song. Obviously he’s a very funny man, but he’s also an incredible musician, and his improvisational skills are incredible. I knew that he would get the song, I knew that he would get the direction, and he’ll be able to bring that silliness with the heaviness. He just does that so much in his own work; he would just be able to nail it. And I just reached out and was like, “I want you to do this.” And he’s like, “Yep, sounds good, great.” And since then, we’ve spent some more time together and actually have become friends. It’s so wicked. He’s just the perfect person to lift the black hole universe, and expand it, make it more than me, bring in another voice, to really elevate it.

So his part of that kind of sermon-esque verse, was that all improvised?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Yeah, he did a couple runs through of just improvising and trying different things. He’s like, “How was that?” I was like, “Great!” I’m gonna cut it up, I’m gonna find the narrative there, and I’m gonna thread it all together. I just sat and sort of figured out what needed to be where and how. Maybe I’ll release some alternative takes one day as well.

That would be so fun to hear.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I’ve got an outtake of him as well singing “Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden, which I probably won’t release but — [Laughs].

I also noticed when he starts singing, the chords sound sort of dissonant in a way.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: The way that I often write harmonically is that things are usually centered around one scale. So, you could have a chord, but other things can be incorporated from that scale. And there might be little crunches of dissonance, but because it’s always moving. It shouldn’t feel too dissonant, because I’m not sitting on the dissonance. It’s a dissonance that’s moving. It’s all part of this tension and release, a bit of a crunch and then it releases, a bit of a crunch and it releases. Hopefully, it helps pull you through the song when you’re listening, like, feeling like it’s more of a journey, rather than something that’s quite static.

10. “In Your Mind”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: That’s kind of a pairing to “Something Wrong With Your Mind,” in terms of the lyrics. I really like there being interludes to help curate the journey through a record. Different kinds of experiences, a short story and a slightly longer one. It’s nice to break up things, rather than being like lots of long songs, to have some little short things that refresh your ear and give you a little window into another part of the world, but you only get a glimpse of it.

One of my notes for this one is, “Was this an intrusive thought?” The way the vocals are layered it sounds like they’re fighting with each other.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: That’s definitely — I have a lot of intrusive thoughts. [Laughs] That can be one of them, for sure. That’s one of the things that I really struggle with. So yeah, exactly.

11. “Tofu”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I love tofu. That’s one of my favorite foods. I am a militant vegan, and tofu takes up a lot of time and energy in my life.

Fried rice is the only thing that I would really eat for months and months. I just kind of stopped eating, and then fried rice felt like something I could manage, and then it became the only thing I could manage for a long time. And I definitely have that thing of fixating on a meal and only wanting that for a long time. But this was kind of more because, it’s not that that’s what I wanted to eat, it was the only thing I would eat. And I felt capable of cooking for myself, and the only way I felt I could take care of myself was to make this meal knowing that I was eating something nutritious and comforting that I would also have a little bit of excitement for in a time where I felt no excitement or joy about anything.

It was even a tiny little glimpse of joy in my day knowing I could have that meal. So it felt like I needed to incorporate that into the record.

12. “Fried Rice”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: In terms of the meaning, I just wanted it to be fun, silly. I was singing it around the house. I was making fried rice and singing the song, and hitting things, like the pan or whatever in time. So there’s a bit in the middle of “Fried Rice” where I’m hitting pots and pans. I recorded it because it’s exactly what I was doing. I was singing these little songs around the house to comfort myself.

I really love those tracks. They balance the joy with the echo of hopelessness that you’re coming out of. That’s a real thing where you need one thing to look forward to in the day and it doesn’t have to be profound or anything.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Exactly, just one thing to anchor you.

Do you still feel connected to those foods?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I still eat tofu regularly. Fried rice, I did fall out of love with to the point where the thought of eating it made me feel sick. But, I’ve fallen back in love with it. I had it the other day, and I was like, “Oh, dear, this is coming back.” There’s something special about this meal!

13. “Where’d You Go”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I’m not massive on labels, but I think the closest thing to my belief system is taoism. I do believe we’re all little parts of the whole, like souls, or whatever you want to call them, are part of a much bigger organism. When we are gone, we return to that. I felt like the best way to describe that is this Buddhist proverb that I read a long time ago that was explaining that we’re all waves in an ocean, and when the wave crashes, the wave isn’t gone, it just returns back to the ocean. I’m riffing on that and exploring it in other capacities. What happens to the seed when it’s planted? The seed isn’t gone, the seed has become something else. Where does the sun go when it’s cloudy? The sun’s not gone, you just can’t see it.

I’ve had to do some heavy work on that, because before everything with my partner, I thought I knew what I thought and felt about the universe. Then something big and horrible happens, and you kind of throw that out the window, in a way. It’s like, there’s nothing, there’s nothing. There’s no this. There’s no that. There’s only pain. Then you have to find a way to come back to yourself. And I now feel more entrenched in the opinions and beliefs I had before. I’ve come back to them with a stronger resilience. I wanted to share them with other people.

Well, at the time, I thought I was just sharing it with myself, and then obviously, now the music isn’t mine anymore, I’m sharing it with other people, and hopefully people can take something from that. Maybe they I don’t know, maybe it’s someone that hasn’t thought about anything spiritual before. Maybe someone has their own differing beliefs, we can all sort of contemplate whether we’re even here at all, what matters, and what doesn’t matter.

How did you want to sonically frame those thoughts?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I went with what felt natural and organic and honest. There’s a kind of jazz fusion kind of vibe to it. The verses sound kind of like Herbie Hancock. But then there’s jangly guitars, and when the harmonies start to come in, it reminded me a little bit of Fleetwood Mac. It’s a little Stevie Nicks in the way I’ve approached this. Then, at the end, it’s very much back to jazz fusion and lots of synths, and then the trumpet solo.

14. “Wanna die”

Why did you want this to be the song that introduced people to this period?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I felt like this is the track that really summed up everything. So the dark lyrics, the fun kind of groove, there’s lush jazz harmonies as part of it and then there’s this sort of guitar driven pop-punky thing at the end. It’s quite cathartic, very head-bangy and the lyrics have this dark sense of humor running through them. If there is one song that sums up the entire record it is this one.

Then with the video that goes along with it, I needed to lean into that even more so, having the visuals be very colorful, very silly, showing people that I played everything. So being every member of my own band, it was about expanding on that universe.

It almost sounds like when you’re too caffeinated, and you can’t catch your breath. The drum beat seems a few steps ahead.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: The way that the snare comes in is anticipated. So rather than it being on the beat, it’s before the beat. You’re kind of jumping forward all the time.

Regarding the video, I’m curious about what the last image with Gilles Peterson attached to a ball and chain was about? I feel like it was just to be goofy and surreal. But I’m curious about the thought process there.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: Definitely to be goofy and surreal, but also to kind of show the narrative — because he’s presenting as a talk show host with a music act. But I wanted it to all feel a little bit wrong or off. Then show at the end I’ve kidnapped him, and I put him in my basement, and I’m forcing him to host this show so I can be a star and live out my dream of being a musician on camera. He’s this kidnapped talk show host, kind of the vibe I was going for. Just cause it made me laugh. I thought it was really funny [Laughs].

15. “Staring At The Wall”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: In terms of the pacing of the record it is definitely like a breather. The freneticism of ” Wanna Die,” and then something that’s quite still. I was referring to this as my Sade track. I know it sounds nothing like Sade, but it’s that kind of calming, low vocals. It’s a reflection of what I spent about six months doing. I was just staring at the fucking walls, not knowing what to do with myself, apart from also playing a lot of Zelda and being babysat and watched by people. Yeah, just feeling like a blob, not being able to do anything or being like a pet, almost.

It needed to be included in my journey of the past couple years. That’s also a definite universal experience of needing time to process and not have any more input. I think a lot of the time that’s what I’m doing. I’m just staying at the wall, switching off, disassociating. That’s kind of my normal state. And I’ve got a feeling it’s more prevalent than other people let on as well.

16. “I Don’t Recognise My Hands”

Fitting you bring up disassociation because that’s kind of the exact vibe I got for the following track, but a much more literal out-of-body experience.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: As you said before, a lot of the tracks have got sisters, and they kind of come together. I definitely get that a lot, dissociation, and not recognizing myself and panicking that I’m dead. [Laughs] I get that a lot, a lot of intrusive thoughts of that. It’s about exercising the demons by making a song about it, although it hasn’t made them go away. So maybe it hasn’t worked, but I guess in the moment it felt right to do. It felt like part of the processing.

When you have those feelings again do you think of these songs, reminding yourself that you’ve been through this before and you’ll get through it again.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I guess that’s part of it. I definitely have memories of feelings. But I feel this way all the time anyway. It’s not gonna go away so it’s about making it real and not just in my head.

17. “It’s Okay” (Feat. Kassa Overall)

This feels like the last turning point of the album, like we’re on the up.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It was written before, but it needed to come towards the end to have that feeling of hopefulness. And working with Kassa, I felt like it needed some other people’s words on it. And the drums that I did before were fine, but I just thought that he could really elevate them and bring out the jazz aspect for a more collaborative feel, not just feeling like me doing everything and feeling quite static. He could just lift everything and make it breathe, give it a new life. He did exactly that. He nails it. He’s someone that you know, has his own struggles as well, so I knew that he got the message. He’s such a good guy. And he was sensitive, but forceful when needed, and found humor when needed, and went into the darkness when needed. Perfect collaboration. I love working with Kassa.

Have you worked with him before?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: No, but we’ve got a lot of people in common. I’ve been listening to his stuff for a very, very long time. I’m sure there’ll be more to come.

18. “Remedy”

Where were you mentally when you were making this song?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It was towards the end of the writing making process, and I noticed myself falling into some traps — what I would do to make myself feel better. Which I kind of do anyway, like I’m definitely someone that dopamine seeks. For sure, I do have a bit of an issue with that. I’ve had issues in the past with drugs. I don’t really want to unpack that any further, but I noticed myself falling into some more traps of doing stuff to make myself feel better. And, realizing that there’s not a proper remedy, it’s just temporary. And I wanted to write something that was not just about me, but about how other people find the idea of remedy as sort of tricking yourself into feeling like you’re healing, where really it’s just temporary short fixes.

The first part of the song, which is exploring ideas of what we do to make ourselves feel better — screens or sex, or, you know, whatever it is, all these things that are about, “I want to feel good now.” At the end, the groove finishes and it opens up into the second part of the song, this new part of the world that’s very swirly. The groove is gone; it’s just kind of like all these voices around your head and the words being repeated: “Remedy isn’t easy/ Hundreds of bees work to make the honey.” I remember researching bees and realizing that to make one teaspoon of honey takes these bees a lifetime of work. It’s all about the little, tiny things that you do that all compound. It’s not just about a quick fix, about well, if I sleep with that person, I’m going to feel better and everything’s gonna be fine. Or if I eat one salad, I’m gonna be instantly cured. There’s none of that. It’s just hard, hard work, and it takes a long time. And that’s why I wanted to write about it in a song. I’ve been trying really hard to do all the little things to take care of myself, and it’s exhausting, but it’s hopefully working. We’ll see. I feel like I needed to pass that message on.

I love that. I love the little synth solo in there too.

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: It’s actually really cool backwards as well. When I got my test pressing, I played it backwards on the record player, and it sounds really cool. I was like, maybe I’ll release that version. That’s crazy.

19. “Thank You For The Day”

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: There were a few things written, sort of pre-losing my partner. Nothing was finished, but it was at least started. “Weirdo,” “Something Wrong With Your Mind,” “Black Hole,” “It’s Okay,” and “Thank You For The Day” were all started before and came back to them after having about six months of doing nothing. I sat down to write it, and was like, “I have the seed of this. I know the sound world. I just have to dive back in.” I’m not starting from scratch. That was helpful.

What was the song on the album that was like the breakfast or broke that period of rest and grieving?

EMMA-JEAN THACKRAY: I love that, the breakfast of the album. I sat down to work more on “Thank You For The Day,” which obviously is at the end of the record, and this was a more hopeful way to leave the listener after a heavy journey. It was the first one I sat down to look at again. And it might seem really strange, because obviously I wasn’t in that place of feeling grateful for the day. I was very much in the opposite place. But I wanted to work on that song because I wanted to get to that point. I want to feel grateful for the day. And I felt like working on that record was maybe a way to start to get there.

I was quite hesitant to really solidify the verses lyrically. I was mainly doing la la, las and da, da das, and then writing the lyrics separately, not committing them and recording them, but wanting to sit with the lyrics a bit more before I fully solidified it. The verse lyrics for “Thank You For The Day” were some of the last things that I wrote. I needed to go through the whole record so that I could come back to that song and complete it. The breakfast was what appears to the listener as the dessert.

Weirdo is out now via Brownswood Recordings/Parlophone.