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>> Ex-Delgados singer Emma Pollock
goes solo with Watch the Fireworks

GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN! Emma Pollock

by LORRAINE CARPENTER

“Supporting the New Pornographers, that’s going to be a really, really enjoyable tour,” says Emma Pollock from her home in Glasgow. “The funny thing is, it’s gonna be a bit like going back to square one—the last time I toured in a van was 1996.”

That was the year the Delgados released their debut album on their own label, Chemikal Underground. The label remains, with releases by the likes of fellow Scots Mogwai, Arab Strap, Bis and Aereogramme in its catalogue, and members of the Delgados continue to work there, including Pollock. The band, however, split in 2005 following the departure of bassist Stewart Henderson, who’d grown tired of what Pollock calls “the whole rigmarole of writing, recording, releasing and touring.”

Pollock, who had been the band’s guitarist and co-singer, was initially torn between getting a day job and sticking with the rigmarole. She chose the latter, hence Watch the Fireworks, her debut album with 4AD Records (one of Chemikal’s sister labels, via Beggars Banquet). It’s a lovingly rendered record that bridges sugary classic pop and epic indie rock, relying neither on retro or trendy aesthetics, nor the pale singer-songwriter stylings that often leap to mind when one sees a lone woman with a guitar. In any case, Pollock’s not alone—she’s backed by a full rock band (and a piano) on both her album and her tour.

“I love an awful lot of very, very clever pop writing and I just keep wanting to find that brilliant pop song, but at the same time, I have a huge amount of time for darker guitar music with massive rhythm sections,” says Pollock, defining her musical taste as encompassing everything from “Sigur Ros and Slint right through to XTC and ABBA.”

“It’s really exciting to try and embrace all these different styles within one album,” she says, “and I like to think that there will be a natural sense of continuity because it’s all my work, with a fairly constant team of instrumentalists. Artists can’t help but be themselves if they leave things to their instincts.”

With the New Pornographers at
le National on Monday,
Oct. 22, 8 p.m., $27