During a session for their 2020 debut album, Tara Clerkin Trio were interrupted by building work taking place outside. Scrapes and clangs of scaffolding got caught in the chord loop they were making on a childhood keyboard at the time. Rather than scrap the recording and start again, they grew attached to the soft dissonance of the metal, and sought to replicate it in the final version of the song. They ended up using a more audible clip from a royalty-free sample website, Tara Clerkin recalls, laughing. \u201cWe had to credit the guy who had recorded the sound on the sleevenotes.\u201d<\/p>\n
These happy accidents and incidental noises have gone on to shape much of the Bristol-formed band\u2019s breezy, collage-like sound, which has charmed underground music fans across the spectrum (including jazz heads \u2013 despite the name, they stress that they are not a jazz band). That first album is now on its fourth repress and they\u2019ve released two acclaimed EPs since. Drifting somewhere between minimalist jazz, avant-pop and trip-hop, their looping compositions are born from hours of improvising and layering. Their melodies clatter, clonk and wander in strange directions around Clerkin\u2019s daydreamy incantations, conjured from a motley crew of instruments they can and can\u2019t play properly.<\/p>\n
Tara Clerkin Trio: Lazy Daisy \u2013 video<\/p>\n
Like the scaffolding, the found sounds that lurk around Tara Clerkin Trio\u2019s tracks enhance their uncanny atmosphere: some footsteps here, some chimes there. Occasionally the band, made up of Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos and his younger brother Pat Benjamin, even sample themselves, warping and recycling past recordings. \u201cThe more you sample yourself, the less samples you have to clear\u201d (for copyright) says Paradisos, wryly. \u201cYou just make your own noises.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is impressive how full their music can sound, despite there being just three of them (a previous version of the band had eight members). \u201cIt\u2019s a cliche, but limitation does force you to be creative,\u201d says Benjamin, before Paradisos chimes in: \u201cIt\u2019s all the power of the loop pedal. That\u2019s our fourth member.\u201d<\/p>\n
We\u2019re meeting in a pub in Stoke Newington, north London, close to where Clerkin and Paradisos now live (Benjamin is still based in Bristol). They\u2019re gearing up to release their second album, Somewhere Good \u2013 their most pop-oriented record yet, and one that critics are already calling a potential album of the year. While it still features their signature scattering of oddball sounds (a comb, a wicker lamp), it feels like a step in a new direction: there is more structured songwriting and storytelling, plus vocals from Paradisos for the first time. On one track, they even ditch the loop pedal. \u201cLike a real band,\u201d Benjamin quips.<\/p>\n
The album arrives three years after their last EP, a period that has been fraught with challenges. After living in Bristol for 16 years, Clerkin and Paradisos were priced out of their rented house. Then they moved to Liverpool to care for Clerkin\u2019s mother who was ill, a predicament that forced the band to cancel a US tour and take a six-month break. \u201cIt was by far the shittest year I think I\u2019ll probably ever live through,\u201d says Paradisos.<\/p>\n
\u2018Touring three times a year doesn\u2019t pay for you to live the rest of the time\u2019 \u2026 Tara Clerkin Trio. Photograph: Peter Eason Daniels<\/p>\n
The lure of job opportunities brought the couple to London, where they\u2019ve been juggling to make finances work over the past six months, through pet sitting, sofa-surfing and subletting. They almost couldn\u2019t make today\u2019s interview: \u201cI\u2019ve got two new bosses texting me, like: \u2018What\u2019s your availability next week?\u2019\u201d says Paradisos, who also works as a landscaper. \u201cI was like, I don\u2019t know, because I have this quite important thing that\u2019s happening at some point, but also I can\u2019t afford to lose these jobs and not earn.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new album was made in similarly precarious circumstances, written and recorded between tour dates in a string of different flats, studios and Airbnbs. The last mix took place on a laptop in New York Public Library, and the masters made their final journey from an airport in Cyprus. \u201cIt was a time when we were just touring like crazy,\u201d says Benjamin. \u201cBetween that and working, it\u2019s so hard to find the times where it would just be like: oh, we\u2019ve got a three-day gap \u2026 Let\u2019s find a studio that we can do some stuff in.\u201d<\/p>\n
They laugh about it now, but that balancing act, paired with the situation back home, almost pushed them to give up. \u201cI kind of feel like a more sensible person in our situation would have stopped doing it a while ago,\u201d says Clerkin, only half-joking.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all part of what Paradisos refers to as a \u201chostile environment to do art\u201d in the UK, something the band is still adjusting to, almost a decade in. \u201cIt\u2019s really quite rare to come across working-class artists, because there\u2019s basically a rule that you have to do it and not get paid for 10 years,\u201d Clerkin says. \u201cDoing tours three times a year or whatever, you can\u2019t really go and get a full-time job. But then the tours don\u2019t pay for you to live the rest of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
As with their last two EPs, the album is coming out on the in-house label of east London record shop World of Echo, who they\u2019ve become friends with. After the band spoke to several A&R people at bigger labels, they concluded that an advance to make an album \u2013 \u201cis like a payday loan\u201d, says Paradisos. \u201cIf you give away so many rights, you\u2019ll never get another penny from your music.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new album captures some of these qualms: Lazy Daisy is about losing a job, while Silently contemplates grief. Later on, Slow Island mourns a place made unrecognisable by gentrification. But an optimism shines through, in the sprightly chords, the playful percussion, and in Clerkin\u2019s high, bright voice. \u201cEven though we were going through so much, we wanted to make something that was positive \u2013 something that recognised pain in an honest way, but also offered some sort of momentum forwards,\u201d she says. \u201cLike, we are still doing it, even though we\u2019ve hated how skint we\u2019ve been for many years. We carry on because we love it and it feels like one of the most meaningful things we can do with our time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somewhere Good is released via World of Echo on 5 June<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"During a session for their 2020 debut album, Tara Clerkin Trio were interrupted by building work taking place…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":470884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,61,60,278],"class_list":["post-470883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=470883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/470883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/470884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=470883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=470883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=470883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}