Femke Releases Debut EP 'Safe In The Suburbs'

Femke shares her debut five-song EP Safe in the Suburbs.

The singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, label owner, and soundtrack composer releases the EP on Enci Records. The video for “Dead End Street” follows the characters that were first introduced in the video for the title track earlier this year and built on by last month’s video for “Love Somebody Else.”

Femke recorded the EP at her home studio in Nashville, playing all the instruments and producing. The EP’s songs form a narrative, with the title track hinting at the alienation and thwarted emotions that lurk behind the neat façade of split-level homes and mowed lawns. The videos for the EP are thematically linked, underpinning the cinematic visions the songs themselves create.

Femke (Weidema) was born in Drachten, a rural town in Friesland which she dubs “the Kentucky of the Netherlands,” with a population under 50,000, where she played accordion and studied classical music at a Dutch conservatory not far from her home.

As a songwriter, Femke won the regional finals of the Netherlands’ Grand Pop Prize before receiving a full scholarship to the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she studied voice and composition, winning several awards, including an ASCAP Harold Adamson scholarship, which enabled her to study under Lin Manuel Miranda as part of the Johnny Mercer Foundation at Northwestern University in Chicago.

Moving to Los Angeles, she became part of the city’s film and TV music community, composing scores with jazz musician Don Grusin, then working at Hans Zimmer’s famed Remote Control.” Showing her versatility as a multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Femke sang along with Blink-182 on the soundtrack of the movie “Fired Up.” 

Relocating to Nashville to pursue her ambitions to write, record and produce herself. She proved an adept writer in a variety of genres, including Latin and county, penning the single, “Goodbye,” on Latin Grammy winner Beto Cuevas’ Transformacion, named Pop Album of the Year in 2014, and having her song “Smoke,” a collaboration with Jade Halliwell, honored as Song of the Year at the British Country Music Awards. 

Finding herself alone during the pandemic, Femke ended up writing the songs for the EP, the culmination of her experience composing music for film and TV with its visual motifs – as can be seen in the videos for the first three singles, including the title track, followed by “Love Somebody Else.”

“The songs are very personal, but I’ve tried to write them in a way that is relatable to other people,” she says, “My goal is to find an audience that is looking for something other than Top 40 love songs, music that is relevant to them. I want to speak to those who don’t believe they belong in a way that they feel heard.”

Listen to the EP and watch the music video here:

Photo Credit: Christine Schwan 

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