Unlike most of today’s singer songwriters, Emilia Mårtensson‘s teenage years were not spent exploring the catalogues of Dylan, Waits, Young and Drake; rather, her evenings were spent listening to Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Anita O’ Day in the depths of Southern Sweden’s countryside where she hails from.  While her girlfriends listened to popular styles of the day, she and a group of local musicians performed in her parents’ restaurant which Emilia would later turn into one the regions most successful jazz clubs hosting some of the country’s most acclaimed acts.

Fast forward 10 years and Emilia Mårtensson is a London based singer of considerable repute. Her critically acclaimed contributions (both as vocalist and lyricist) to the UK’s new stars Kairos 4Tet no doubt helped them bring home a 2011 MOBO Award, while her distinctive voice led the Observer to claim her “The New Face of British Jazz 2012.”

And So It Goes… is the debut album from Emilia Mårtensson and Barry Green, released on the Babel Label (2012). The album documents the duo’s shared love of a wide range of material, presenting fresh and exciting arrangements of a superb choice of repertoire, drawing on the wistful folk songs of Emilia’s homeland alongside some of the greatest melodies of the last century.  The recording is a finely poised blend of jazz and artful alt-pop, and has received a considerable amount of worldwide acclaim in the press.

For sure, the jazz vocal legends inform Emilia’s approach, yet it is the Swedish folk songs of her country that underpins who she is. Her pure, clear-toned & intimate voice– at times deeply soulful, at others ethereal– blur the lines between folk and jazz.

“The new face of British Jazz 2012” The Observer

”Intimate, poised and even otherworldly” The Metro

”Ethereal Voice” Time Out

”Pearly innocence” The Daily Telegraph

”Mårtensson invests every sound with a skimming, rapturous lightness and clarity” The Guardian