Emily Ulman – Severe Clear (Metallic Gold vinyl)

‘Severe clear’ is an aviation term describing skies so clear and cloudless that the endless visibility is too much to take in. I have always loved the phrase. Severe clear weather often follows a storm, and that resonates with me too. A furious, cloudy pocket of weather giving way to something calm and bright and still. Pilots say these conditions are dazzling – almost too perfect.

Severe Clear is a song about the moments that arrive after everything has settled. It’s about clarity that is so beautiful it is almost unbearable. That strange kind of beauty: perfect, but piercing.

I think about weather a lot. I lean right in because it is intrinsic. And magical. This song lives in that space between forecast and feeling. It’s about those quiet, everyday moments that feel huge. Like standing in the middle of something spectacular and letting yourself be swept up by it. It is about love, about letting yourself be soft and fall, it’s about buying matching towels because you want to be one and the same.

Johnny Nash wrote ‘I Can See Clearly Now’. And I’m borrowing the idea that after the clouds and hard times pass, something brighter takes their place. Sometimes clarity isn’t sharp or sudden or cold. Sometimes it is soft and patient and a little bit dizzying. And perfect.