Music

Homeland homage: Emma Hill's latest album is a tribute to Alaska

Emma Hill's first attempt at songwriting was an admittedly ridiculous country song about heartache, an 8-year-old's condemnation of feigned love.

The Sleetmute native's latest effort is another love song -- this time devoted to her home state.

"Denali," which Hill made available to Alaska audiences at live shows starting in August, will be released officially in November.

Her musical career, spanning five albums with creative partner Bryan Daste, has taken Hill to Europe, the Caribbean and on tours through much of the Lower 48.

The album's title track plays like a ballad, with the allure of the homeland waiting at the end of a journey.

"The content of the song 'Denali' is talking about the idea that the more I travel -- all these beautiful places I've been to around the world -- it's not cliché for me at all when I say out loud I'm still absolutely in awe of this state," Hill said.

Growing up in a town of less than 100 people in the western Interior, Hill's exposure to outside culture was limited to what she could glean from a single television station and an indecipherable radio signal. But her already burgeoning musical style was being fed by artists like Don McLean and Simon and Garfunkel.

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"I really just grew up with my parents' tape collection, which was primarily '60s and '70s folk rock," she said. "It has a big part of how I hear music. The way that I feel it needs to be expressed has a lot to do with that tape collection."

She moved out of the village at age 14 and graduated from high school in Palmer before moving to Portland. There, she recorded a handful of demos in 2007 at Daste's Magic Closet studio, which became her first album, "Just Me."

It was the beginning of a seven-year collaboration in which Hill would write songs with Daste adding both instrumentation and input on production.

"She was very receptive to ideas I had," Daste said. "It just became this collaborative spirit and it's been that way ever since."

Hill moved back to Alaska in 2011, but the duo used technology and occasional visits to continue recording and touring.

"The (songs) come in pretty fast bursts of inspiration most of the time," she said. "I record them on my phone or laptop and email them to Bryan and in a matter of hours he has a rough demo."

"Denali" features Hill's songwriting in a number of forms -- from stripped-down pop-folk tunes like "A Long Way to Run" to more languid, richly produced tracks like "Bright Eyes."

"What sets this album apart -- it has a lot of Alaska in it," she said. "Not just the song content, but the fact that we recorded a majority of it here, which is different (from past albums).We also brought a bunch of good Alaskan friends, who also happened to be some of the best players, in to do session work for us. That changed it."

In keeping with the local flavor, Hill's nephew Ben Massey produced a video in June for the song "Denali," documenting Hill and Daste's travels through the state, including footage of a flightseeing trip over Denali National Park.

"He was with us for 10 days driving around Alaska, getting amazing footage," Hill said. "He wanted to represent Alaska in as non-cliché a way as possible, try to represent the bond between Bryan and I and the awe that is present within the song."

Hill, fresh off a tour of Alaska over the summer, will be heading to the Lower 48 in November to tour in support of the album.

Hill has managed to maintain success due in part to relentless, well-planned touring.

"A number of things happened that changed everything for our career," she said. "I did a solo tour of Europe and discovered house concerts. It changed everything. You're playing to a smaller crowd, but it's way more intimate and there's a shared experience happening. People are way more likely to donate generously. It's not a ticket price, more 'see me do what I do, let me tell you my stories and you decide if you want to make a donation toward what I'm doing,' which is actually how I make my living. People are incredibly generous."

And while touring pays the bills and allows her to continue to make music, Hill said her latest album embodies the fortune she feels when she returns home.

"When you come from a village of 100 people, I think I have a pretty unique perspective on what it means to be from Alaska, but more than that it reflects how I take in the rest of the world," she said. "I am really appreciative of that."

Emma Hill

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Chris Bieri

Chris Bieri is the sports and entertainment editor at the Anchorage Daily News.

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