Tara Clerkin Trio’s ‘On The Turning Ground’

Next month sees the release of ‘On The Turning Ground‘ by Bristol’s Tara Clerkin Trio (ft. Tara and brothers Sunny-Joe Paradiso and Patrick Benjamin). The new five-track EP is released via World of Echo (3rd November) alongside several shows (see dates below), including a Bristol EP launch, the city at its heart:

Their inspirations might be centreless, but the trio still possess a very obvious anchor in the form of their hometown. Bristol stands as a city of multitudes, heterogeneous and vibrant in such a way as to allow it to renew and remake time and again. Tara Clerkin Trio drink from that same well, duly reflecting a rich musical heritage built on fwd-facing electronic subcultures and experimental urges. As such, On The Turning Ground finds them subject to their own subtle internal evolution, the pervasive sense that you’ve caught them mid-bloom, on their way to becoming but never anything but themselves.

Clerkin’s ethereal vocals take centre stage on the dream pop ‘Marble Walls’, a sparse open number featuring some fat quirky synth, gentle guitar strums and trip-hop beats. The accompanying video appears to have been filmed in church, and towards the end, you can hear what sounds like a church service.

The title track, The Turning Ground, is another vocal-led, quirky, yet delightful. Both numbers have a carefree feel reflected in their seemingly simple, unplanned DIY videos.

The label share that:

…the three vocal-led pieces that comprise the record’s core feel like a gentle ossifying of aesthetic into something approaching their own unique form of avant-pop. ‘Pop’ is, of course, a broadly subjective concept, but there’s no avoiding the overt sparkling melodicism of songs like ‘Marble Walls’ and ‘The Turning Ground’, undeniable re-directions of that late 90s impulse to bend pop sensibilities into off-centre terrain, to render the familiar new again. This is what Tara Clerkin Trio do, gently pulling the ground from under your feet, turning you to face something you’d not quite seen before. To view the world as they do: sideways, sometimes, all of the time.