Tara Clerkin Trio

Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio make their Australian debut performing their acclaimed album, Somewhere Good . Tara Clerkin Trio are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation. Drawing on jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia, and minimalism, the trio turn these influences into an uncanny and blissful sound that’s all their own. Somewhere Good is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work. Lauded for its ‘inventive and restrained’ ( Pitchfork ) sound, the trio colour in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes – never wallowing, despite exploring inherently sombre subject matter of self-defeat, disease, and displacement – allowing their arrangements and improvisations space and time to breathe and ultimately take hold on the listener’s imagination. The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, and peculiarly accentuated wind instruments combines to hypnotising effect. Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and reflective plain-spoken moments are Tara’s subtly inspired melodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation. A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of their own universe in song. Praise for Tara Clerkin Trio ‘Tara Clerkin Trio unpick and rethread myriad 90’s DIY tropes and drape it with esoteric and uncompromisingly modern chamber jazz and baroque folk baubles that are just impossible not to fall deeply in love with.’ – BOOMKAT ‘The Bristol band’s latest is inventive and restrained, blending influences from trip-hop, folk, and pop for a subtle, uncanny sound that’s all their own.’ – Pitchfork