REVIEW: Secret Emchy Society -- The Lost Feral Tapes

Secret Emchy Society pulls back the curtain on their new EP The Lost Feral Tapes. Cindy Emch (also fondly known as Emchy) has held the queer country scene down in the Bay Area with many projects, including Vagabondage, Rhubarb Whiskey, the Oakland Wine Drinkers Union, Jerk Church, and Feral. The Lost Feral Tapes gather some of the songs left by the wayside across the past decade and bring them to us now.

A lot of these recordings are raw — with the exception of “Crossroads,” which is a live recording, these are demos. But there’s something in that primal roughness, the core of Emchy’s consistently fantastic output over the years the Tapes encompass: a restless yearning for connection and meaning, a refusal to give in to loneliness and despair. Even “Stars Fall Shooting,” a declaration of love, is delivered with a wariness that pain may come again. Still, there’s no harm in trying for a different outcome.

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