Josienne Clarke - A Small Unknowable Thing (2021) [Official Digital Download]

Josienne Clarke releases her new album A Small Unknowable Thing. For the first time since her early beginnings, Clarke is flying solo. No label, no musical partner, no producer. Clarke is in complete control of her songwriting, arranging, producing, release schedule and musical direction. While the themes might feel familiar to her fans, the musical journey will not, with Clarke taking in a wide range of new and diverse influences across the album – from Adrianne Lenker’s ‘Hours Were The Birds’, IDLES’ ‘Colossus’, Radiohead’s ‘Airbag’ to Phoebe Bridgers ‘Garden Song’ and more, the album’s touchstones span a vast musical collage of anger and hope. Lead single, ‘Sit Out’ is frustration and defiance in sonic form. “All you stand for / Makes me want to sit out” she sings over thick, driving guitars and an almost Beastie Boys-esque drum beat.

Despite writing a plethora of critically acclaimed songs, winning a BBC Folk Award, opening for Robert Plant on his European tour, playing prominent slots on some of the UK’s biggest festivals and even taking a leading role in The National Theatre’s revival of Timberlake Wertenbaker’s Our Country’s Good (after being personally chosen by Cerys Matthews no less), Clarke felt daily self-doubt as a result of an industry that variously gas-lit, put-down, questioned and othered. It’s an experience the vast majority of women making music today can identify with. A Small Unknowable Thing is, at least in part, about recognising there are still existing structures to keep women in their place – but it’s also about having the courage to break those structures down too.

“I realised that I had to be so explicit in explaining how much I’d done in order to get credit for it,” Clarke explains. “I started saying ‘No, actually, I did all of this, can we put my name on this thing?’ It’s really resisted – it’s as if I’m being an arrogant megalomaniac for wanting the credit for stuff that I did. Now, I just do it all by myself. If there isn’t another name on it, then there can’t be a misappropriation.”

TRACKLIST

01. Josienne Clarke - Super Recogniser
02. Josienne Clarke - Like This
03. Josienne Clarke - Never Lie
04. Josienne Clarke - Chains
05. Josienne Clarke - If It's Not
06. Josienne Clarke - Sit Out
07. Josienne Clarke - Sting My Heart
08. Josienne Clarke - The Collector
09. Josienne Clarke - Tiny Bit Of Life
10. Josienne Clarke - A Letter On A Page
11. Josienne Clarke - Deep Cut
12. Josienne Clarke - Out Loud
13. Josienne Clarke - Repaid
14. Josienne Clarke - Unbound



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