Back in December, we shared the news of Josienne Clarke‘s forthcoming EP, “I Promised You Light” (out February 4th). That announcement was accompanied by her lead single ‘Driving at Night’, a song about escaping – caught in the optimistic glow of new possibilities. Today, she shares the second cut from her EP ‘Workhorse’, described as one of the most experimental tracks to date, with Sharon Van Etten and Sylvan Esso being the song’s musical touchstones. The EP brings a shift in her outlook, one that is filled with “hope, something with a bit of light in it”.
Clarke says of the song, “this is the most joyous one on [the new EP], to me,” describing Workhorse as a “weird dance acoustic mashup.”
Of the track’s experimentation, Clarke says she has been “slightly flirting with synths and electronic sounds more” and using “less acoustic music” in an about-turn from her usual style. “I don’t intend to renounce my acoustic roots at all, but I feel like the old set-up in the industry was quite keen to tell me what type of music I could and couldn’t make,” Clarke explains. “I feel like ‘Workhorse’ is like: ‘What if I could do whatever I wanted? What would that sound like? That sound is this track.”
Says Alec Bowman_Clarke, director & editor, of the video: “Here we find the artist beginning to understand herself, her physical & mental form gaining confidence & strength, finding her way to the true her in the neon microscope flashing disco glare of the public. She was reborn, a butterfly from a chrysalis, on the cover of ‘A Small Unknowable Thing’ and now she must learn to stand on her own two wheels, like a newborn horse in a field…” It’s a great analogy…”lately I’ve been learning, I don’t have to be good…”. While that may be the case, there are moments of confidence and poise throughout. There’s a light and airy feel to this number, the pastel lights used in the video, along with the use of synths, draw out that feeling; it’s a refreshing delight from start to finish.
New EP I Promised You Light is due out February 4th – Pre-Order it here: ffm.to/ipromisedyoulight