Tonglen Tunes: Emily Anderson

Like stumbling into a rose garden on a trek through the arctic, listeners of Emily Anderson’s music find themselves helplessly lifted into a world so hauntingly familiar, and yet so enchantingly curious. Anderson’s music is as shaped by this whimsical perspective as it is by her musical credentials. A multi-instrumentalist trained at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Anderson fills her songs with images of nature, hope, and the solar system, not to mention a few puns. Anderson hails from Fairbanks, Alaska, and now splits her time between her hometown and Los Angeles.

Her upbringing in a tight-knit community has shared her musical perspective. One radio reviewer remarked of her 2017 full-length album Simple Things, “Emily Anderson’s music shatters the imagery you might have of surviving the long dark winters while living in Fairbanks, AK. One might expect dark introspection or a songwriter who bites back at life, but the songs on Simple Things are warm and emotive.”

In recent years, Anderson has lent her skills to video games and game trailers Calico and The Stars Between Us, and shared bills with Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Peter Mulvey, and Aurora Birch. She’s toured across Alaska, the west coast, and Canada. She has also released three new singles, “Sarah,” “Gold,” and, on February 5, 2021, “Hugs.” The second, “Gold,” has been placed in a national ad campaign with Miller Lite, and was a finalist in both the American Songwriter and Songwriting University Song Contests. These songs, which tackle subjects like grief, mental illness, friendship, and pandemic isolation, are optimistic as well as raw. Anderson’s music reflects her determination to find light in tough times.