Scout Niblett

In 2010, Niblett released her fifth studio album, The Calcination of Scout Niblett, marking her debut release with Drag City. The album received positive critical reviews from Pitchfork and Spin, who noted: "[Niblett's] minimal songs – just one guitar and sporadic drums – unfold laboriously, as though forcing themselves from Niblett's clenched mouth and hands." Niblett followed this with a single, No More Nasty Scrubs, in 2012, which featured covers of TLC's "No Scrubs" and "Nasty" by Janet Jackson. Her sixth studio album, It's Up to Emma, which she recorded in Portland, Oregon, and mixed the record herself. It was released on 21 May 2013 also on Drag City, and received positive critical acclaim from Pitchfork, Allmusic, and NME.

Niblett's unorthodox musical arrangements have been noted by critics, particularly her sparse instrumentation and dramatic shifts in tempos. In her earlier work, specifically I Am and Kidnapped by Neptune, many of Niblett's songs consisted of vocals accompanied only by drums; "[I wanted to] make drumming and singing be as accessible as me playing guitar and singing," she said in a 2004 interview. Her later albums featured Niblett mainly on guitar, and with a backing drummer.

Niblett relocated to the United States in 2003 to continue pursuing a music career, saying: "The underground music culture in America is big enough so that you can make a living from it without being super famous. The mainstream culture of music [in England] is so different, because it's all based on selling things... In America you don't have to enter into that, you can still survive. You don't have to be in the industry there and you do [in England], so I had to leave". She has resided in Portland, Oregon since 2005.

After sending out her EP demo CD "Alene Had It All" (recorded under the name Lion, and accompanied by drummer Kristian Godard), consisting of vocals, guitar, and drums, to multiple record companies, Niblett was approached by Secretly Canadian, who had been given her demos by Jason Molina of Songs: Ohia. The following year, Niblett released a 7" split-single with Songs: Ohia, contributing the track "Miss My Lion". Niblett followed the single with her debut album, Sweet Heart Fever, released by Secretly Canadian in 2001, which she recorded at Chem Nineteen Recordings in Hamilton, Scotland with producer Andy Miller.

Niblett cites among her influences a number of grunge period bands, including Mudhoney, Sonic Youth and Nirvana, and in particular the guitar of Kurt Cobain. She also stated that she was largely influenced by Hole's first record, Pretty on the Inside (1991): "I was seventeen when I first heard it. For me, the thing that I loved about them and her (Courtney Love) was the anger, and aggressiveness, along with the tender side," said Niblett. "That was something I hadn't seen before in a woman playing music. That was hugely influential and really inspiring. Women up 'til then were kind of one-dimensional, twee, sweet, [and] ethereal."

Her drumming technique, however, is inspired, she says, by a man who played at an open-mic night in Nottingham and would accompany himself on the drums while playing Beatles covers. This drumming technique has been a particularly distinctive feature of Niblett's records with Steve Albini, whose method is to place the drums centrally in the mix. An example of Niblett's minimalist approach to songwriting is "Your Beat Kicks Back Like Death", included on I Am and as the B-side to "I'll Be a Prince." It consists solely of a drumbeat with a cheerfully delivered repeating lyric, "We're all gonna die!", eventually concluding, "We don't know when, We don't know how." According to Niblett, she had originally composed the song on guitar after nearly getting in a car accident while on tour during a winter storm. Also of note is her downbeat cover of Althea & Donna's 1978 reggae hit "Uptown Top Ranking", which Niblett released as a single after it became popular at live performances.

Emma Louise Niblett (born 29 September 1973), better known by the stage name Scout Niblett, is an English singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Niblett debuted in 2001 with her first full-length studio album Sweet Heart Fever, and has gone on to release five more studio albums. In 2013, Niblett released her sixth studio album, It's Up to Emma, which she mixed and produced.

Niblett began performing at clubs in Nottingham while attending college. She chose her stage name in honour of Jean Louise "Scout" Finch, the protagonist in Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird.