Written by: Dave Cantrell
We all know – or should know – that as much, if not more than, melodies hooks or soaring guitar solos, what at its heart makes a song truly memorable are the subtleties and nuances at play, the attention to detail that never presents as ‘attention’ but instead is so intrinsically woven into the work that it becomes something more akin to a dreamt schematica of the music’s DNA. Now, if this were just a conversation we were having across a cafe table we’d be citing any number of examples of what we mean but as we have the new track from new, New York City-based artist Clara Joy sitting right there beneath these words there’s really no need to expand on that claim as nothing we could say would come within miles of illustrating our point as the exquisitely, well, beautiful “Find Things Beautiful.”
Exhibiting, by dint of astute studio assistance from label owner/master of all trades Kramer, something of a preternatural ability to blend – and therefore to some extent bend – multiple genres (umm, let’s see; folk, avant-pop, a slinky cool, even casually acid-tinged take on the early/mid-70s singer-songwriter genre among others that will make themselves known the more I listen to this track) into a singular, which is to say avidly unique style all her own, well hell, so far as we’re concerned that’s the very touchstone of why we do what we do here at SEM and certainly goes to the very heart of why any of us were so helplessly lured by the siren that is music in the first place, right? Right. And indeed. And ‘say no more.’ So we’re not going to, except to mention a pertinent, rather unsurprising background detail from her bio: “Clara is the granddaughter of experimental artist Alison Knowles and Dick Higgins, founding members of the 1960’s Fluxus movement, inspired by John Cage” which, though certainly relevant, is not in itself a guarantee of anything (last we looked the arts are in fact not overrun by the progeny of the greats) and the fact remains that, genetics aside, very few songs speak as eloquently to the very gist of the yearnings and passion and mysteries and, yes, joy that constitute the mysterious pull music has on us but this one? It’s as if it was conceived to do exactly that. Taken from the forthcoming debut full-length What We Have Now, it’s difficult to remember having been this primed and eager for the release (on May 23rd) of an artist’s first full-length – for this writer I’d have to go back to, I dunno, Patti Smith? – as all of us here in the office are for this one. God I love doing this. [feature snap: Su Koko]
