Emulations is an interim release comprising new Blue Heron studio recordings paired with tracks from a live-in-the-studio session at Albuquerque college radio station KUNM, all recorded in the Spring of 2025. The idea for the release came together when Blue Heron were making plans to record their song for the Magnetic Eye Records Best of NIN Redux project, and decided to see what else they could pull together to get the most of their studio time. The result was four new studio tracks, three being cover songs, along with four live-in-studio recordings from the radio session. The release title Emulations came from a lyric in one of the covers, and fit the concept of a record where the desert rockers are playing other bands' songs or performing live versions of their own tunes.