The New York Times reviewed Monday’s Bowery Ballroom show!
[Clare and the Reasons] sang quiet songs that only accentuated Mr. Chesnutt’s dire crescendos. Clare and the Reasons played sweetly intricate chamber-pop that somehow mingled folk-pop, Philip Glass, cabaret oompah and the Beach Boys — for starters — behind the songwriter Clare Muldaur Manchon’s poised high voice, with an endearing quaver as she sang choruses like “Ooh, you hurt me so.” Liz Durrett opened the show solo, picking stark guitar parts and singing with the breathy vulnerability of Beth Orton or Cat Power. Her folky ballads succinctly balanced sorrow and the determination to hope.
We’ve been digging the new album Arrow from Clare and the Reasons here in the office so when I found out they were playing at the Music Hall of Williamsburg last night, I dragged my dreamy-chamber-pop-loving ass out in the rain to see them. Let me tell you, it was worth the wet socks…
Clare and the Reasons are terrifyingly cute. They could destroy all worlds of lesser cuteness, blasting apart their molecules like Oppenheimer, and the band displayed this menace instantly via their stage props: brittle bundles of winter foliage, washboards, a tuba, and red pipe cleaners, the last of which would soon jut artfully/insanely from Clare’s hair. The band’s five members scattered and regrouped randomly, foreshadowing the highly twee experience to follow…
The city annually rings in fall to the backing soundtrack of CMJ, as New Yorkers and indie music spirits blanket most of the Lower East Side like summered, partied-out leaves in search of the next big thing. What ensues is a messy cacophony of sounds, with a hearty helping of bland bands that eventually blur into the five days of music madness and are rendered irrelevant. Luckily on day number one, Clare and the Reasons breathed new life into the festival with a refreshing springtime sound at Mercury Lounge, reviving show-goers’ great hope for music renewal with their whimsical, narrative version of chamber pop.
It took Clare & the Reasons a while to set up for their show at the Mercury Lounge. First, they had to affix bundles of white, leafless branches around the stage, creating a small forest in which to play. Then, they had to tune and soundcheck an arsenal of instruments: washboard, clarinet, trombone, tuba, glockenspiel, violin, bass, several guitars, assorted percussion, ukulele, and kazoos. There were no complaints for the late start, but widespread disappointment at the truncated set.
