FEATURE: Spotlight: Clara Mann — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Clara Mann

__________

IN future…

Spotlight features, I am going to go into the band market. Now, I wanted to highlight an amazing young Folk artist whose music is among the most beautiful and accomplished out there. Clara Mann is a Bristol-based musician whose 2021 E.P., Consolations, is a remarkable work that you need to listen to! New songs like Thread and Go Steady are among her best work. I hope that we get even more work from such a sensational and unforgettable talent. With such a beautiful voice and an exceptional songwriting talent, Mann is someone who will go on to big things! In terms of interviews, most are from 2020 and 2021. At a time when the pandemic was in full flight and most artists were restricted and alienated from their fans, it was an unusual time to write and release music. Consolations was the subject of conversation and focus for Wax Music in their interview. They noted how there is something classical about the style and sounds of Clara Mann. Folk songs that seem older and classic but have this modern edge, she is an artist that everyone should know about:

“You’ve had a really good couple of months – this is your debut and you’re already generating quite a lot of buzz. How’s that been for you?

I had very low expectations – not because of undervaluing my work, but just because it felt like a really strange time to be releasing music and like you say, I was a newcomer. But it’s been amazing! I’ve been completely overwhelmed by the response to the two singles so far. Sad Club Records have done an incredible job. I think my head’s kind of in a spin! It’s been frustrating obviously not being able to play live shows and meet people but I’ve just been really, really happy and excited.

How did you get involved with Sad Club Records?

About two years ago I was going to a lot of DIY gigs in Bristol with friends who were writing music and putting stuff out on Bandcamp, and I was like “oh this is really fun, maybe I should try writing my own stuff” so I just put out some demos on Bandcamp. I met a couple of people at gigs who had seen my social media and they liked what I was doing and showed an interest in me in that way. I was, I think, quite surprised because it’s not something that had ever occurred to me, although I grew up with music in my family and I’m a classically trained musician, but Sad Club Records just messaged me one day on Instagram and asked if I wanted to put something out with them! I was like “oh my god, so exciting, oh wow, I’m famous”, and then put out a track with them on one of their compilations and it just sort of started like that. It was honestly just through meeting lovely people who were working with Sad Club already.

And they’re a cassette only label – it’s quite niche.

I know! Very trendy. People ask me why it’s coming out on cassette and not vinyl, but they just don’t understand how on trend I now am”.

What sort of challenges would you say that you’ve had to overcome so far in bringing this out and working on it over the past year?

I think it was letting go of perfectionism and reaching an acceptance that there is something really special about the intimacy that comes with lo-fi home recording. Working with other people, even at a distance, I had to let go of my control. It was so important for me to accept that other people actually did know better than me when it came to recording because like, I can barely use Garageband! That was a really valuable experience.

I think it was mostly just that it was lonely. I would have liked to have been playing live – I would have liked to be getting that energy from musicians. I was lucky that my boyfriend is a musician and that Ben was so supportive the whole way through, so I think that was the main thing was feeling slightly robbed of that experience.

You’ve said that you write songs to keep yourself calm in a busy world. Would you say that the state of the world at the moment has put more internal demand on you to write?

I think so. A lot of these songs were written in the spring of 2019, so in a way they span my moving to Bristol and then being quite lonely, and then this weird vacant period, just at the beginning of COVID when it was starting to happen.

I think I have put more pressure on myself because of the way the world is. There is no stimulus, there’s nothing going on except this weird void and ‘void’ is quite difficult to express in a way that’s not just really abstract and airy-fairy. I don’t want to do that – it has to be more perceptive than that, I’m not satisfied with just expressing nothingness. So I think I’ve put more pressure on myself and I have had to let go of that, because actually it was blocking me creatively. Once I stopped putting pressure on myself and things opened up a bit more”.

There is a recent feature about a new Clara Mann song that I want to end on. Before that, I found a positive review from For Folk’s Sake concerning Consolations. In addition for it being comforting and soothing at a difficult time (2021), it is also an E.P. that warrants repeated listens and reaps rewards the more you hear it:

“This collection of four songs brought by newcomer, Bristol-based singer-songwriter sounds timeless. Clara Mann is a classically-trained musician and she grew up in a small village in the south of France with classical music and choral pieces around her. As she put it herself , Mann “makes soft ‘almost folk music’ to make herself feel calm in a busy world”. We can be grateful that she shares it with us and opens the door to the piece of her soft, magic world, so we can feel calm too.

The title of the record comes from piano composition ‘Constellations’ by Liszt, one of Mann’s favourites when she was little. She describes her record as lo-fi. It was recorded in the artist’s home, which strengthened the intimacy of the songs. The songs explore something very familiar for everyone – the idea of waiting, passing time, and change captured in Mann’s intriguing songwriting.

‘Waiting for the Flight’ is a melancholic tale of waiting for a beloved one. The melody of tender ‘Thoughtless’ runs like a brook of verses when she sings about being vulnerable to the world, the vulnerability which may be a blessing or a curse. In ‘Station Song’ you can hear the sadness and bitterness of saying goodbye to a place you know so well. The last song (and the first single she has ever released) is the graceful and wistful ‘I Didn’t Know You’re Leaving Today’, which deals with loneliness and longing, a pain known by so many now during the lockdowns.

The simple and poetic tunes of Consolations sound like they can transfer you to the small picturesque village, by the coast, or cozy armchair by the fireplace, somewhere in a serene place. Clara Mann’s debut is a good musical balm for this time of uncertainty and chaos”.

One of my favourite singles of the tear is Go Steady. Such a stunning artist, Clara Mann releases music that gets into the soul. I am imagining that next year will find her touring around the world. In fact, you can keep updated of her tour movements by following her social media channels. CLASH covered news of the release of the marvellous Go Steady:

“Clara Mann spent her childhood on the move. Growing up in locations as diverse as inner London and the South of France, the rural South West of England and the DIY hub that is Bristol, she learned to piece together her identity on her own.

Music, however, was always a constant. The songwriter began to express herself as a teen, playing tiny shows at first, with a voice both promising and hesitant. The past 12 months have represented a period of sharp evolution, with Clara Mann able to distill those stark folk influences – Karen Dalton, say, or Vashti Bunyan – into something that is purely, uniquely hers.

New EP ‘Stay Open’ is out on November 1st via 7476, and bold single ‘Go Steady’ leads the way. A gorgeous listen, it’s an intense piece of songwriting, with Clara Mann learning to bid adieu to the past, and accept the present.

A work gilded in emotion, ‘Go Steady’ is sublime, the minimalist arrangement seeming to place further emphasis on that voice, as refreshing as a cool silvery drink from a country stream.

Clara Mann comments…

“’Go Steady’ is about letting go of the past, and standing on your own two feet, firmly in the present. It’s also a thank-you song to everyone who’s shown me love, and kept an arm around me when I’ve needed it.”

“I used to be scared of letting go of things- of people, of stories from other times in my life- because I thought it meant leaving parts of myself behind, too, but I’ve recently realised that I’m happiest when I’m just being present in the Now. The marks those times left on me remain, but I don’t have to carry the whole of my story with me all the time, it’s heavy and it slows me down.”

“After some very strange, dark times, ‘Go Steady’ is a break in the clouds, and the closing of a chapter…”.

A typically amazing song from an artist who I am a big fan of, go and check out Clara Mann. Such a wonderful talent who I have been a fan of for a while now, there is something autumnal and evocative about Mann. Her music transports you somewhere. It keeps you warm but there is also this spark and fire that is like nothing else. Spend some time today investigating…