Freak Scene #108: Henning, bobbie and Emily Margaret
Henning Ohlenbusch and bobbie have new albums, while up-and-coming singer Emily Margaret is busy exploring different sounds
This week in Freak Scene, we’re chock full: Henning Ohlenbusch has a new album, and so does bobbie, while a handful of songs from budding singer and songwriter Emily Margaret show that she isn’t quite ready to settle into one sound or style.
If there’s one song that contains the very essence of Henning Ohlenbusch’s solo music, it could well be “Different Pillows Hold Different Dreams,” from his new album Almost Always Overwhelmed. The theme is quirky, and Ohlenbusch sings the gentle folk-pop melody with such guilelessness that the idea in the title seems plausible, at least for a moment.
The Northampton singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist — he performed and recorded everything here — veers off in different musical directions elsewhere on his latest. Yet each of these 10 tracks has a similar gee-whiz sensibility, as if Ohlenbusch has managed to somehow stay untainted by cynicism in a world that offers bountiful opportunities to succumb. He seeks refuge in the innocence of youth on opener “That’s Where We Belong,” backed by Hawaiian-style slack-key guitar and single-note bloops of electric piano. Ohlenbusch lifts his voice over a bubbly surge of keyboards on “Fairytale in Reverse,” and cranks up the electric guitar on “Your Heart Isn’t It,” which splits the difference sonically between early electric Dylan and late-period Beatles.
Though he has a fondness for concise pop songs, Ohlenbusch goes long on “We Are All Around You,” a raga-like track stretching past 13 minutes. He sings intermittently over a looping bassline and steady, unchanging beat that create a drone-like backbone for whorls of dissonant guitars. It’s a departure, no question, but the track shows that he’s willing, and able, to play against type. It’s almost like the song is a different pillow, projecting a different dream, just one formed within the same mind.
Bobbie Channels Dreams Into ‘Lessons’ LP
Like many people, bobbie keeps a dream journal. Theirs is particularly fruitful: dreams are the source of much of the lyrical imagery on Lessons, the Northampton musician’s new album, which follows bobbie’s exceedingly dream-like 2023 release Rhododendron. Turns out they’ve has been dreaming a lot about loving people, though not necessarily in a romantic sense. Over nine songs on Lessons, bobbie tries to accept people as they are, even while recognizing that such a thing is not always possible. Or, as they put it on the fourth track, “learned the hard way / that learning the hard way / is really just living.”
There’s no break between that song, “Learned the Hard Way,” and the preceding track, “To My Core I’m a Lover.” In fact, many of the songs on Lessons flow together without interruption, which makes sense: the album is as much the musical embodiment of a worldview as it is a collection of songs. The music drifts through the album, forming an enveloping soundscape that shifts and changes in subtle ways. Twinkling Omnichord electronic autoharp blends with atmospheric synthesizers and guitars that add a muted, burnished feel to the bottom of these songs, and bobbie sings in reflective, murmuring tones. Swells of melody emerge here and there to wash over the songs: lustrous flickers of piano flare quietly in the background around bobbie’s plaintive vocals on opener “Cloud Vision,” while a cleaner-sounding re-recording of the Rhododendron title track lets the vocal hook emerge more clearly from the somber swirl of keyboards that define the song.
Like bobbie’s first album, Lessons has a meditative quality that can stretch as far as you let it. It’s like a mindfulness practice, but in a more communal way — as if tuning in to what is emerging from bobbie’s subconscious in these songs can illuminate a pathway to your own. Let’s not go quite so far to as to suggest that bobbie is some kind of spiritual guide, but Lessons is full of, um, lessons, and they tend to be the kind worth paying attention to.
Emily Margaret Is Still Finding Her Sound
Emily Margaret makes a good point. The New England singer, a.k.a. Emily Matthew-Muller, has released three songs recently, each with a different sensibility, which feels natural for a musician who is still figuring out her style.
“Young musicians are often told to find their niche/their sound and stick to it,” Emily Margaret, 18, says by email. “Personally, I know I'm young and still finding my sound, and enjoying playing and writing with different musicians.”
She recorded the first song, “Breakfast in Spain,” live at the Stone Church in Brattleboro in July 2025 as part of the GRRRLS to the Front program. The tune has a jazz-pop feel, with a crisp, samba-influenced rhythm tethering chords on guitar and piano while Emily Margaret sings in a bright, limber voice. She was 15 when she co-wrote the song with Liara Neha Torres at a workshop taught by Sonya Kitchell.
The other tracks are part of Lanes Cove, a two-song EP she made with guitarist Oscar Korson that took shape this winter during a two-day songwriting retreat in Gloucester. “Fortune” features gummy-sounding acoustic guitars with a hint of reverb, or maybe a chorus effect, underneath Emily Margaret’s clear vocals. “Excavator Man” is a folk-pop number with a hooky repeating guitar figure and vocals that offer a sense of Emily Margaret’s range.
Now a student at Emerson College in Boston, Matthew-Muller is from Guilford, Vt., just over the Mass. border. She has studied at the Institute for the Musical Arts in Goshen (she wrote her first song at 9), and Miss Leticia Music School in Amherst, where she teaches in the summer.
Upcoming Concerts
The full concert calendar is available here, and this week’s shows are listed at the end of the newsletter.
Bluegrass-rooted group Punch Brothers play July 21 at Tree House Brewing in South Deerfield (tickets).
The Iron Horse in Northampton hosts Chicago alt-country band Case Oats, with Henry True, May 15 (tickets), Andrew Duhon May 22 (tickets), the folk singers Dan Zukergood, Ginny Elkin and Johnny Joelson May 31 (tickets), Philadelphia singer-songwriter Greg Mendez June 24 (tickets), Willie Nile Nov. 21 (tickets) and Ronnie Earl & the Broadcasters Nov. 28 (tickets).
The Parlor Room presents Jason Anderson with Cloudbelly April 23 (tickets).
The Drake in Amherst hosts the Wailers May 7 (tickets).
Western Mass. bands the High Noons and Shatterack play March 29 at the Marigold Theater in Easthmapton (tickets).
Country singer Charley Crockett plays June 17 at College Street Music Hall in New Haven (tickets). Umphrey's McGee and moe. play June 18 (tickets) and the Israeli-American electronic rock group the Living Tombstone are there Oct. 24 (tickets).
The Space Ballroom in Hamden hosts Covet June 3 (tickets), Gang of Four (with Ted Leo on guitar!) June 23 (tickets) and Greg Mendez June 27 (tickets).
I still miss the comedy show Broad City, whose co-creator Ilana Glazer performs June 3 at College Street Music Hall (tickets) and Aug. 12 at the Academy of Music in Northampton.
That’s it for this week! Thank you for reading! If you like what you’ve seen, please share. Also, I’m always open to submissions. You can send music for coverage consideration to erdanton at gmail or reply to this email. Check out these guidelines first.
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