Clara Mann releases new single “Go Steady”, announces new EP
Clara Mann
Releases New Single
‘Go Steady’
Announces New EP ‘Stay Open’ Out November 1st via 7476
Photo credit: Meadow Florence Marks. hi-res available here
On her new single, Clara explains “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”
Perhaps more than anything else, Clara Mann is a storyteller. Her songs are led by a keen sense of character and narrative, each guided by exactingly-chosen words carried by melodies which gently unspool and drape over elegant arrangements of creaking guitars and understated, breathy strings. It’s an approach which lends her new EP ‘Stay Open’ a sense of both immediacy and durability: it takes no time at all for the listener to step into the world that she builds with her writing, but there’s much to explore once you’ve arrived.
Music has been a constant in Clara’s life. From the age of four, she studied classical piano, encouraged by her writer parents to express herself creatively. The family moved around during her childhood, living in London, rural southern France and south-western England. The memories of the homes she lived in and the landscapes she left behind appear throughout her music. Once she was old enough, Clara began going to DIY gigs in Bristol, experiencing another cultural realm which would go on to inform the music she makes today.
With little in the way of expectation, she began playing casual shows of her own, experimenting with songwriting using an acoustic guitar her parents had given her some time ago. As well as chanson and choral influences she grew up with, elements of Irish and American folk music began to enter the stylistic mix, brought more sharply up to date by Clara’s love of alternative artists like Jessica Pratt, Shannon Lay and Tom Waits.
‘Stay Open’ is a remarkably accomplished piece of work: vulnerable without lacking conviction, verbose without being florid, self-assured but never arrogant or alienating. It’s the sound of a young artist with a clear vision, informed by a breadth of personal experience, that belies her age.