Though composed and developed over a number of years, the thirteen carefully crafted
songs that make up Amy Clarke’s debut album
A New Way form a compelling and cohesive
whole. As its title suggests, this is a record that’s concerned with transition
and change - its difficulties, challenges, opportunities - and Clarke
approaches the theme from a variety of perspectives, offering character
portraits, relationship confessionals and spiritual ruminations while sustaining an
intimate, confiding tone throughout.
A
single, stark piano note ushers in the arresting opener “Rain Come Round”: the
song then picks up pace with rolling percussion and an urgent vocal as Clarke anticipates a tempest to come: “Tornados, I have lived where
they land/ But this time I am not frightened/I have built a better border/and
I’m safe here from your storm.”
A New Way is indeed heavily piano-based: the classically
trained Clarke is a versatile and creative player who combines jazz, rock, pop
and classical elements in her arrangements. Liner note thanks expressed to Tori
Amos and Sarah McLachlan (with whom Clarke has collaborated) feel apt; in fact, at times the
album seems to set up a warm sisterly dialogue with Amos’s just-released latest
record, Native Invader [review], in its potent exploration
of feminist and ecological themes. The connection is especially evident on the beautiful
centrepiece “Between the Ice and the Ocean”, with its “Reindeer King”-evoking imagery, and
on “We Are the Web,” an ardent plea for unity between humans and the natural world: “we must listen to each other/listen to our Mother/to heal her
and to make her whole.”
Occasionally,
as on the closing “Shine,” Clarke’s lyrics resort to more generic statements of
uplift, but the album isn’t afraid to introduce some discordant elements as well. The terrific “Belmont Blues” is an ambivalent relationship reminiscence delivered in a sultry, defiant style. The elegant
and touching “From Here” doubts that divisions can be bridged. “Once” combines
graveness and buoyancy to compelling effect. “Goddess” offers a double-tracked, gently
percussive, spirits-evoking assertion of personal power and the challenge of
its maintenance, as Clarke challenges herself: “I must remember to remember this.”
Still, the album’s tone is, overall, loving, open and
conciliatory, as evidenced on the title track, which draws assurance and inspiration from
mindful attention to nature’s offerings and a recalibration of perspective. Most
moving of all is the celestial “Ella Mira,” a gorgeous ode to unexpected faith wrought
from fleeting connection that works as love song, spiritual declaration, and
cosmic reflection. Delivered in Clarke’s warmest vocal tones, the song
encapsulates the best of A New Way. It's a
cleansing and inspiring album by a talented artist to watch.
A New Way is
released on 5th October 2017. Further information here.
