Emma Rosie, Demi Hawks [patched] May 2026

“I used to think songs had to be grand,” Rosie says over a grainy Zoom call, her vintage flannel hanging off one shoulder. “Then I realized the most devastating thing you can say is just, ‘You said forever, but you meant next Tuesday.’ ”

In an era where streaming algorithms often dictate taste, the quiet revolution happening in the corners of Bandcamp and sold-out intimate club shows feels almost sacred. At the heart of this movement are two women who have never met—yet whose careers mirror each other with uncanny symmetry: Emma Rosie and Demi Hawks .

Whether alone or someday together (a joint tour is the holy grail for their fanbase), one thing is clear: Emma Rosie and Demi Hawks are not fleeting trends. They are the whispered beginning of a new canon—artists who remind us that the most radical thing a young woman can do in 2026 is be unflinchingly, messily, gloriously real. Seek out the unofficial “Sad Girl Starter Pack” playlist on Spotify, curated by fans, which alternates Rosie’s “Lighthouse” with Hawks’ “Concrete Angel.” Just keep tissues nearby. emma rosie, demi hawks

Demi Hawks, meanwhile, is writing a short film and scoring a BBC drama about queer joy in the 1980s coal miners’ strikes. “Songs are too small a container for me now,” she says. “I want to build worlds.”

Lyrically, Hawks is a poet of the digital age’s loneliness. Her song “DM Slide” isn’t a love song—it’s a forensic takedown of performative intimacy, set to a beat that sounds like a dying Game Boy. Meanwhile, the piano-driven ballad “Social Housing” chronicles her childhood with a chilling simplicity: “The walls had mold / But they held / Better than the people.” “I used to think songs had to be

Hawks, upon hearing this, laughed. “Emma is the sister I never had. She makes you feel held. I make you feel seen. There’s room for both.” Emma Rosie is currently in seclusion in a remote cabin in Washington state, recording her debut full-length album with producer Blake Mills (Perfume Genius, Fiona Apple). Rumors suggest a more electric, percussive sound—what Rosie calls “folk music that kicks the door down.”

Hawks grew up in the foster system, a fact she refuses to exploit for pathos but cannot separate from her art. “When you’re moved from house to house, you learn that silence is dangerous,” she explains during a chaotic backstage interview before a sold-out show at London’s The Windmill. “So I fill every second. My songs are clutter. They’re the stuff you hide in your closet.” Whether alone or someday together (a joint tour

That line, from her viral single “Tuesday,” has been used in over 500,000 TikTok edits. But unlike many viral stars, Rosie resists the algorithm’s pull. Her live shows are famously silent—audiences recording nothing, just listening. Her recent cover of Joni Mitchell’s “Blue” at a Brooklyn loft show was described by one critic as “a surgical dissection of heartbreak so precise it should require a medical license.”