Tusks’ new album will be released February 12th
‘Do I See You There?’ is Tusks’ fourth full-length album, and the first to be produced entirely by Emily Underhill. Created in the wake of losing a close friend, it is her most personal work to date. Released on February 12th via One Little Independent Records, the album sees Underhill balancing immense analogue electronics with intimate reflections on grief and memory.
“Pretty much all of this album is influenced by me dealing with my friend's death,” she says. “Tim was my guitarist when I started Tusks and we gigged and toured together a lot then stayed good friends after, but he sadly died of pancreatic cancer a couple of years ago. This album is about me dealing with that grief in the expected and unexpected ways it manifested for me.”
Photo credit: Arnoud Ele
Alongside its emotional core, ‘Do I See You There?’ represents a defining creative milestone. During the making of the record, Underhill undertook a two-month residency at The Townshend Studio, home to Pete Townshend’s extraordinary collection of priceless synthesisers. Immersing herself in the likes of the EMS Synthi 100, ARP 2500, Yamaha GX-1 and CS80, she embraced the character of vintage gear, allowing the production to become a part of the songwriting. It is the first Tusks album she has written and produced entirely herself, marking a new level of artistic independence, aided by the unprecedented access to some of the rarest synthesisers ever built.
Like the analogue synths that provide the album its bedrock – machines whose quirks, imperfections, and unpredictability imprint themselves on every performance – ‘Do I See You There?’ is interested in the traces people leave behind, the imprints they have on the those who loved them.
The LP opens, fittingly, with ‘An Opening’, a piece built around the Synthi that Underhill describes as feeling like “the sound of some kind of electronic orchestral dawn.” Elsewhere, ‘Time’ confronts the uncomfortable realisation that life is finite, with loss forcing questions about commitment, relationships, and the future into sharp focus. ‘How Can I Be The Same’ turns that same emotional intensity outwards, responding to an experience of sexism encountered during the making of the album with a renewed sense of conviction and self-worth.
‘Adhere To The Loss’ examines the guilt and frustration of wishing you'd made more of the time you had with the people you love, while ‘It's You I Want To Know’ reflects on the last conversation Underhill shared with Tim before his death.
“One of the things I found the hardest about dealing with my friend's death was the regret I felt at not making more of our friendship. I think I've always suffered with a bit of social anxiety which I think can make you feel isolated sometimes and keep people more at arms length and deal with things alone and this song is my frustration and anger at that and wishing I didn't work like that.”
Elsewhere, ‘Figure’ captures one of the album’s most striking moments, exploring the disorientating experience of repeatedly believing she'd seen him across the road from her studio. “My studio is opposite where my friend's office was and the pub we would meet at sometimes after work and after he died I started having really visceral images of seeing him across the street as I walked to my studio. It's about exploring the idea that someone is kept alive in this liminal space in your mind and what that means.”
The song perfectly captures the one of the album’s central preoccupations; the strange ways memory reshapes familiar places, blurring the boundary between absence and presence, until the people we've lost continue to inhabit these spaces through us.
Since emerging with her debut album ‘Dissolve’, Tusks has established herself as one of the UK’s most distinctive voices in alternative electronic music. Early comparisons to Sigur Rós and Explosions in the Sky saw Emily Underhill gain support from BBC 6 Music's Lauren Laverne, BBC Radio 1’s Annie Mac and Huw Stephens, alongside praise from Rolling Stone, Billboard, MOJO, Mixmag and Wonderland. Produced with Brett Cox (Jack Garratt, alt-J, Marika Hackman), ‘Dissolve’ introduced the immersive sound that would become her hallmark.
2021’s ‘Avalanche’ expanded that palette, drawing influence from shoegaze, embracing a heavier, more immediate sound inspired by artists including My Bloody Valentine, Marika Hackman, and Wolf Alice. Its follow-up, ‘Gold’, saw Underhill turn towards a warmer, more synth-heavy sound, exploring healing, growth and self-discovery through richly textured electronic production. Across all three records, Tusks has continued to refine a distinctive musical language that balances cinematic scope with emotional honesty.
Alongside support tours with Khruangbin, Ásgeir, Bear’s Den, and Submotion Orchestra, Tusks has headlined London’s Village Underground and Berlin’s Panorama Bar, while her music has featured in productions including Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why. Beyond her solo work, Underhill has also composed for film, collaborating with CJ Mirra on the soundtrack to the 2021 feature A Banquet.
