Daughter of Dawn

Daughter Of Dawn is the solo project of Emma Goldman Grey (Malachi, Contentious, Hive), a trans musician and activist residing in the Twin Cities. Emma grew up all over the world as a military brat, living in 9 states across the U.S. and Japan. Throughout her travels, she cultivated a far-reaching appreciation for all genres of music and devoured any album she could get her hands on.
She has been a prolific musician and an avid music collector/fan for all of her life.
Emma was born with music in her soul, taking up piano at age six and moving on to master several woodwinds in grade school. While attending High School in Japan, she stole her first bass guitar from an instrument store and learned to play by wiring the bass to a home boombox because she couldn’t afford an amp. Emma fell in love with the bass and practiced relentlessly. A few years later she picked up an electric guitar and became obsessed with learning this instrument as well. Throughout this time, Emma struggled with her gender identity and used music to cope. It was the late 90’s and there was no trans-representation in music or the media. Always an outcast, she channeled her frustrations through the music she created.
Emma joined her first band at the age of 15 and began the life of a semi-professional musician. For the next 20 years, she would spend every once of her vast creative energy crafting music and touring the world. Emma’s struggles with her gender continued to haunt her, and music was oftentimes the only escape from this battle. She struggled endlessly, trying to determine how to proceed and how to live a life that felt authentic to her. The weight of it all was crushing her and in 2015 she decided that she wanted to end her own life. Due to a last-minute intervention, this didn’t happen, but the time had come to start to piece this part of the puzzle together. In the fall of that year, Emma began to medically transition.
Music literally saved her life. If it wasn’t for the support of other trans musicians, the larger music community, and her ability to channel the frustrations, anger, joy, and euphoria she felt through the early days of her transition, she would not be with us today. She wrote, composed, and crafted new songs and albums that aligned with the experience of transitioning, isolation, and joy. She fell in love with production and electronic music, became obsessed with sound and texture, and dreamed of how she could incorporate these elements into something truly unique. Something vulnerable and full of passion.
After years of playing in punk, metal, and hardcore bands, she wanted to try her hand at a solo endeavor. Starting in 2018 the idea for Daughter of Dawn was born, though it would take several years to fully flesh this project out. Many hours were spent dreaming, scheming, and contemplating how this project could come to life. She wanted to incorporate everything she had been learning about electronic music with her passion for American goth/pop music such as Chelsea Wolfe and Emma Ruth Rundle. She wanted to create something epic; something the world had never heard. Whereas Emma’s former musical work tended to lean towards the visceral end of the music spectrum, Daughter Of Dawn utilizes softness, minimally distorted guitars, electronic pulses, and glitch elements to encapsulate songs about love, grief, joy, and justice.
Started during the COVID-19 pandemic, Daughter of Dawn’s first full-length album “Crushed into Dust by the Weight of the World” will be released on February 5th, 2021. It was recorded and mixed entirely at home by Emma Grey with further mixing and mastering at Basement Studios by Michael Duffy.
It is her opus, a journey into sound, joy, pain, passion, and love.

Emma Website