Emma Tricca
My friendship with Emma Tricca traces back to the early 2000s, when we first crossed paths in London’s West End folk and country scene. I remember being in the audience at some of her most poignant gigs at the legendary 12 Bar Club on Denmark Street, captivated by her voice, intricate fingerpicking, and poetic sensibility. Even then, performing solo, she commanded the stage as if channeling the great folk legends of old.
It would take another decade before our creative paths formally intertwined. When we finally collaborated, it was a natural extension of our shared artistic spirit—an evocative, filmic journey that began in New York City with a series of music videos for her album St. Peter and has continued to evolve ever since.
This page explores that creative partnership, showcasing the projects born from our collaboration and the artistic bond that continues to inspire us both.
2023 - Aspirin Sun
The Making of the Aspirin Sun Album Cover
Designing the album cover for Aspirin Sun gave me the perfect opportunity to explore my love for collage—cutting, pasting, and layering images to create something visually striking. At the heart of the design were newly taken studio portraits of Emma, captured using a low-key lighting technique. These photographs were then combined with scanned imagery from books and magazines, weaving together different textures and elements into a cohesive whole.
A key feature of the cover is its use of optical art. I overlaid two portraits of Emma—one a direct gaze into the camera, the other a side profile—blending them seamlessly in collage form. The result is a dynamic, almost shifting perspective of her face, a modern take on Pop Art that perfectly complements the spirit of her new record.
The final design was then handed over to Stanley Chow, who expertly incorporated it into the album’s layout. Aspirin Sun, Emma Tricca’s fifth full-length release, is an album of fluid influences, moving between folk, psych, and dream pop, all infused with the richness of her life story—from her childhood in Italy to her present in London. The cover, much like the music itself, exists in a space of layered meaning and depth.
2020 - Winter My Dear
Winter My Dear – A Music Video Journey
Filmed on an early autumn afternoon in 2018, Winter My Dear took shape in one of my favourite hidden pockets of East London—along the quiet, untamed banks of the River Lea. Our chosen location, the Middlesex Filter Beds, is a place apart from the city’s rush—overgrown, off the beaten track, steeped in an eerie, almost forgotten beauty. It provided the perfect, unconventional backdrop for the video.
I captured Emma as she wandered through this secluded space, her presence merging with the wild surroundings. In post-production, I transformed the footage, layering it with cosmic special effects to create a dreamlike, otherworldly quality. Adding to the surreal atmosphere, Colbolt Chapel generously lent me additional footage of themselves playing chess in the open air—an enigmatic touch that I eagerly spliced into the final edit.
The result is a visual piece as haunting and poetic as the song itself—a collision of nature, mystery, and quiet contemplation. Winter My Dear was released as part of St. Peter, Emma Tricca’s evocative studio album on Dell’Orso Records. The video, much like the album, embraces a sense of timeless wanderlust, capturing moments that feel both fleeting and eternal—where music, image, and emotion intertwine in a hypnotic, cinematic dream.
A Photographic Encounter with Emma Tricca
Selected photographs from my shoot with Emma Tricca at the Hill Garden & Pergola, nestled within Hampstead Heath.
Like so many before us, we arrived as visitors—drawn to the romance of the pergolas, where time lingers in the latticework of creeping vines and weathered brick. With a Lomo LCA+ in hand, I captured fleeting moments, glimpses of Emma framed against the garden’s quiet grandeur—images that might one day grace the cover of an album or single.
The setting was alive with nature’s flourish, a delicate outburst of floral visions entwined around stone pillars like jewels set in time. As we wandered, the space became a canvas for something unseen, something magical—an imprint on the pergola’s long photogenic history. The soft interplay of light and shadow danced across the aged stonework, lending an almost ethereal quality to each frame. Emma moved through the space as though part of its fabric, her presence effortlessly blending into the hushed beauty of the surroundings.
There was a timeless quality to the day—the gentle hush of the garden, the filtered light that seeped through the wooden beams above, the distant murmur of London just beyond the trees. Each photograph became a quiet meditation on stillness and solitude, a fleeting moment preserved in the alchemy of film.
On the edge of London, this place stands as a sanctuary—a moment of stillness offered freely to the weary traveler. With open arms, we accepted.
Photographs were taken on a Lomo LC-A 120 using 35mm film. A selection of these images found their way onto the 7-inch record release of Winter My Dear—a Colbolt Chapel remix—alongside a B-side demo version of Julian’s Wings, released by Dell’Orso Records. Through these photographs, a fragment of that day remains—a quiet echo of light, texture, and the lingering presence of song.
2018 - St. Peter
The Story Behind the St. Peter Album Cover
The album cover for St. Peter was born from a single, fleeting moment—one solitary frame pulled from a roll of processed Super 8mm film. It was an unintentional yet serendipitous shot, capturing Emma standing alone on the subway platform where we began our daily journeys into Manhattan.
I had been filming the platform and passing trains, framing the rhythm of the city in motion, when—somehow—I clicked off one perfect frame of Emma as she waited. There was something striking about it, something we both immediately recognised. This was the image. This was St. Peter.
The frame was carefully scanned, its dust and scratches meticulously retouched before I handed it over to designer Stanley Chow, who seamlessly incorporated it into the final album layout. What began as a fleeting instant in time became the visual identity of an entire record—a perfect reflection of the journeys, solitude, and spirit captured within its music.
A Cinematic Journey Through New York: Filming St. Peter
In January 2016, I boarded a flight to New York with folk musician Emma Tricca, carrying a simple yet ambitious goal: to explore the metropolis and capture its essence on Super 8mm film. Our plan was to gather enough footage for three music videos to accompany her forthcoming album, St. Peter—a record that marked a bold step into new sonic territory. The folk roots remained, but Tricca’s evolving sound now carried the weight of collaboration, with artists like Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley, The Dream Syndicate’s Jason Victor, Giant Sand’s Howe Gelb, and even the legendary Judy Collins lending their voices and instruments.
I approached the project as a poetic response to Emma’s music. The lead track I focused on, Solomon Said, was anything but conventional—seven and a half minutes of haunting spoken-word narration set against a hypnotic, escalating guitar motif. The track’s enigmatic quality, underscored by Judy Collins’ deadpan recitation of her song Albatross, felt like a cinematic fever dream, culminating in a storm of discord reminiscent of John Cale’s most stirring compositions.
To bring this vision to life, Emma guided me through the New York she knew and loved—introducing me to the people and places that shaped her world. But much of my time in the city was spent alone, just me and the camera, wandering beyond the familiar sights to uncover roads less traveled. One such journey led me to Red Hook, the once-infamous dockland district, where I took in the towering Manhattan skyline across the East River. The streets bore the weight of history, their ageing signage and quiet corners offering a stark contrast to the city’s relentless motion.
Through my lens, I set out to capture not just a city, but its pulse—the intricate weave of urban life that had first inspired Emma’s songwriting. Moments burned into film now flash through my mind’s eye: street signs and neon reflections, commuters and subway trains, fire escapes and rising steam, cafes and the quiet murmur of their patrons, Coney Island’s fading grandeur, and the Hudson shimmering in the winter haze beneath a skyline of endless light.
In the end, the footage became the backbone of three music videos—Solomon Said, Julian’s Wings, and The Servant’s Room—each one a visual dialogue with Emma’s music. This project was more than just a film; it was a journey into the heart of a city I revered, a cinematic love letter shaped by sound, solitude, and discovery.
Julian’s Wings: A Journey to the Edge of New York
The video for Julian’s Wings became a fast-paced odyssey through the city—darting through streets, weaving through the subway system—driven by the ultimate goal of reaching the end of the line: Coney Island. This dreamlike expanse on the outer edges of New York City is where the skyline dissolves into the sea, where the Atlantic stretches endlessly toward the horizon. A place to spread your wings and fly.
With my own name woven into its title, I felt a deep personal connection to this song. I wanted the video to reflect not only Emma’s journey but my own—through the lens, through the city, through the quiet pull of longing and discovery. Coney Island had always held an almost mythical allure for me, a place steeped in history and eremitic mystery, a landscape at once vibrant and decayed, cinematic in its contrasts.
