Every week, Milwaukee Music Premiere connects the city’s artists with our listening audience. If you’re an artist with a track you’d like us to debut exclusively on Radio Milwaukee, head over to our Music Submission page to learn how.
When trying to describe an artist, genre isn’t always an easy thing to nail down. Milwaukee singer-songwriter Micah Emrich presents that kind of challenge by rolling elements of R&B, pop, blues and even EDM into his music. So he’s done us a favor by simply dubbing his signature sound: “Alternative Everything.”
“Everything,” in the case of brand-new single “Nowhere,” takes the form of sultry R&B as Emrich lays down a 3-minute groove about unconditional love. Is there auto-tune-ish vocal manipulation? A fairly substantial rap verse? A tonal shift/breakdown in the final 45 seconds or so? Yes, yes and yes.
Altogether, it’s a slick finale for Emrich’s four-song ramp-up to his debut album, PROMISES, coming out July 26. Based on the quartet of tracks released so far, the project puts R&B at the core and builds around it to create something highly polished and deeply felt. For “Nowhere,” it’s a feeling of unwavering abbreviation and devotion:
Cause through all the good times and the bad times
And the in-betweens
You stood by my purpose
You deserve this
Put you through everything
And I don't know how it got this far
I just know
That I ain't going nowhere
With the album slated for the middle of summer, it’s going to be hard to resist throwing on this track and everything else Emrich comes up with as you roll around town. You can do that today as we play “Nowhere” on 88Nine at 6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; and 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m. The on-demand version is also right at the top of the page if you want to fire it up right now.
If you want to catch Emrich live in Milwaukee in the weeks ahead, you’ll have a couple chances to do so: June 21 at Summerfest’s Miller Lite Oasis and Aug. 2 at Anodyne on Bruce for an album-release party that features FTBK, Duwayne and Nzinga.
