Ember Swift has been performing since she was ten years old. She started writing songs when she was nine, and performed her original work for the first time in grade eight (at age 13). Throughout high school, Ember submitted songs for school projects and would regularly charm her teachers into letting her write music rather than poetry or essays. I guess she was convincing!

Throughout high school, she was also heavily involved in both school-based and community-based environmental activism. Her early work combines her political opinions with her melodic inventions and was the beginning of a songwriting ethic that combines music and activism for greater social awareness that will hopefully lead to social change. After high school, Ember moved to Ottawa, Ontario and pursued her university education. It was here that she began to dip her limbs into the world of singer-songwriters and the folk music tradition. Her first official concert was at the small and well-known Ottawa coffeehouse Rasputin's. She also lived on the Quebec side in Hull for a year, which solidified her bilingualism.

Ember continued to perform live in the Ottawa region for two years before transferring to the University of Toronto in 1995. The music scene in Toronto was overwhelming and addictive, not to mention distracting. She immersed herself in the open stages and small cafes, and was very quick to generate interest and an audience, all the while maintaining her schooling as a self-described "side project." During this time, she met several fellow artists, including her now integral bandmate Lyndell Montgomery.

In 1997, after having developed a four-piece band, Ember and crew headed on their first tour to the east coast of Canada. It was a five-day trip and it was the beginning of what is now a full-time, travelling music career. Ember and the band had a great adventure and certainly realized that this was the life they were heading toward. In 1998, Ember graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in East Asian Studies. In this program, Ember focussed on Chinese language (four years of Mandarin study), religion, philosophy, history, politics, poetry, literature, etc. Her fascination with East Asia (particularly China) has not waned. Despite being out of school for several years, Ember still intends to travel to mainland China in the future as a "back-pocket" career plan. Two short stopovers in Hong Kong and another in Tokyo (en route to Australia) have been enough to keep her love of the Chinese language and culture more than alive.

The formation of her independent record label, Few'll Ignite Sound, in 1997 highlighted an entirely different side of Ember's personality: the geek. Throughout the six years of operating this business, Ember has become a self-described "business head" who has found a love for accounting, business, and computing. In fact, Ember is a closet statistician (well, closeted until now!), and can pull out pie charts in pretty colours that describe tours, inventory, business development, etc. This interest has brought her into contact with other geeks who have graciously given her instruction in database programming, accounting, and business management. This business fascination helped her to build her record label along with a devoted team of employees and volunteers and fellow artists. Everything was D.I.Y. and in-house. The label booked, promoted and managed the tours, releases and careers of Ember and her band. It was quite an operation.

In 2003, Ember started working with Fleming Artists, a booking agency out of Ann Arbor, Michigan. In 2003, she also began a long journey of working with various outside publicists and promoters (who often knew their territories better than anyone at Few'll Ignite Sound could ever know!). Finally, in 2004, she began working with RAM Management, a management company out of Montreal, Canada. This transition seamlessly coincided with her decision to move out of the city of Toronto and into the quiet countryside of Eastern Ontario. The Few'll Ignite sound office was dissolved (now all employees and volunteers work from home) and the outside services took on the tasks that had so long been part of the D.I.Y. machine of Few'll Ignite Sound.