There are two sides to Avalon Emerson you may be familiar with: There’s the Emerson that tours the world as a DJ, whose expansive electronic sounds have taken over Berghain, Dekmantel, and Coachella. Then there’s her more recent venture, Avalon Emerson & the Charm, whose 2023 debut spanned dream pop and lo-fi electronic sounds. Now, this second musical identity is back with a new album called Written Into Changes that manages to bridge that space between both sides of Emerson’s creativity. “For this album, I wanted to make it bolder and bigger,” Emerson says. “It ended up appearing more drum-forward and bass-forward, closer to dance music. But I don’t think the album started out with the idea to collate those worlds.”
Written Into Changes isn’t specifically meant to be any one genre. On the surface it’s most likely to be considered under the fold of dream pop, such is the ethereal nature of songs like “Jupiter and Mars” or the title track—the latter of which has such a sense of stargazing wonder to it that it feels like you’re staring out into the great beyond. It’s testament to Emerson’s talent as a world-builder, as an artist who’s able to brush eloquent pictures onto your psyche so easily. It’s a characteristic that’s shared with her DJ productions, too, considering the constantly evolving compositions on last year’s Perpetual Emotion Machine EP. But Written Into Changes reaches broader strokes. Take the funk-laden groove of “Eden,” or the ecstatic “Happy Birthday,” which breaks out into a sad bop. Its luminescent beat is club-ready, practically begging to get ravers moving.
Her first record with The Charm was a learning curve, as Emerson learned to transition from the DJ booth to the less restrictive stage setting. “I don’t really get stage fright at all anymore, but there’s so many moving parts to having the band—it’s a different type of anxiety,” she says. “You’re very much under more of a microscope when you’re performing your own songs and not in a DJ booth.” Written Into Changes, then, was an opportunity to be bolder, to explore creativity from a new perspective, with fresh voices. “When I was first making this kind of music it was exploratory and I wasn’t sure which tools I had in my box. So I was like, ‘I love writing lyrics and I want to be clearer about what I’m saying, and I feel like there are different ways to use my voice.’ It was cool to realize that you can loop in other talented people and work on something together, making it bigger than the sum of its parts. I feel foolish sometimes as an Ableton person being like, ‘It’s crazy you don’t have to do everything yourself’—you can achieve bigger things working with other people.”
Collaboration has been a large part of changing the creative process for Emerson, but there have also been plenty of personal changes for her in recent years. After spending time in Berlin, she and her partner moved to LA and now reside in Upstate New York. After coming back to America, it took time to reaffirm her priorities. “Being thrown into New York City—which is this seat of hustle, cultural relevancy, and money—it was just noise,” the artist shares, having addressed this change in pace on the new album’s cut “Country Mouse.” “I have a lot of friends there and I miss them a lot. Having relationships with friends and family is the most important thing, so it’s a balancing act I haven’t figured out yet.”
“I feel foolish sometimes as an Ableton person being like, ‘It’s crazy you don’t have to do everything yourself’—you can achieve bigger things working with other people.”
Her time in Berlin provided a necessary change of culture, as rent was cheap and her network of artistic peers was vast. “One of my first roommates made all of her money from busking,” Emerson recalls. “I knew professional sculptors and painters, and it was the ideal city for artists.” As is the case with most modern cities, Berlin has changed rapidly in the last decade. “In came the tech campuses—it’s always changing. Every city is under the oppressive boot of capitalism: housing is harder to find, jobs are less plentiful.” Yet Berlin does have one major advantage over the US: “At least in Berlin, if you break your arm, it’s not going to financially ruin you.”
Despite her rising star as a DJ, Emerson feels more detached from the scene than ever. Some parts of techno and electronic music have become increasingly focused on higher BPMs in recent years, and Emerson sees it as symptomatic of an increasingly algorithm-led culture. Commercialism requires a need for instant impact, to be the most eye-catching prize on the shelf that satisfies shorter attention spans. “I feel like we’re in a post-taste world,” says Emerson. “There’s not an idea of what’s ‘good’ and ‘bad,’ it’s downstream of what gets the most eyeballs and the most engagement on social media. And I think it takes a back seat to interesting sounds and explorations on the medium. It’s not just dance music, it’s everything: movies, TV. The things that succeed can pierce through people’s totally shattered attention spans, and things that pierce through the algorithm feed. Things that are so cringe it pisses people off when they see it and it travels further on the feeds. It does feel a little depressing.”
In spite of this, Written Into Changes is a very positive record when it comes to the human experience and the ways in which we connect with each other. “Eden” is an ode to lingering desire and the beautiful dayglow that comes from being with your favorite person. The album also addresses the love we carry for the people who’ve passed on, individuals we can still admire from a distance. The natural world plays a huge part in the feelings contained within these songs; in come foamy waves and floating milkweed, and waterfall canyons flow in a dreamy stasis. The Earth around us wraps itself into the rawness of our experiences. “Over the years, I’ve realized that the natural world is the oldest model of art, and to me it’s more resonant. The natural world and the human experience are the strongest river from which you flow down when making art.”
“I feel like we’re in a post-taste world....it’s downstream of what gets the most eyeballs and the most engagement on social media. And I think it takes a back seat to interesting sounds.”
At its transcendent best, Written Into Changes is an awe-inducing record that goes to cosmic, existential lengths to capture the human experience. “Jupiter and Mars” goes all the way to the end of the universe, where our specks of dust rekindle in the great expanse of nothingness. Album closer “Earth Alive” talks of love everlasting into the underworld of hell, its imprint left in a kind of universal aura. “Over the course of human history, we have the idea of the divine, and I wish I was somebody who could believe in something like that—like a regular, chilled church,” Emerson professes. “However, I think that the feeling of awe that we’re a small part of a very large and rare experience in this universe—of being a living creature on this floating rock—is an immensely lucky position to be in. I think having a connection to it and making art about it is very natural and easy for me.”
Avalon Emerson & the Charm’s music may be otherworldly on its surface, but its magical properties come directly from the intricacies of being human and the vast beauty that surrounds every corner of our natural world. Written Into Changes may capture a period of flux, when Emerson has witnessed both personal and cultural change, but at its core it retains a hopefulness via the people we meet throughout our lives. FL
