(Pssst! Don’t forget that tonight’s show in Cleveland has been moved to the Beachland Tavern! Don’t go to the Grog Shop, kids!)
The music end of Ralph Lauren has gone wild for Clare and the Reasons. Here’s what they posted today:
We were so smitten by Clare Manchon and her Reasons at this year’s CMJ festival in New York, we wanted to bring you a download from her new album Arrow, out last week, so you can share the love. We tracked down the sweet soprano while she was en route to a performance in Newport, Kentucky, (“We’ve been reading the KISS biography, KISS And Tell, aloud,” she told us from the car) to ask her about the new record, how she made it and what else she’s listening to these days.
Download the single “Ooh You Hurt Me So“
“Did you know that Gene Simmons dated Cher and Diana Ross?” We didn’t, in fact — nor would we have thought that this velvet-voiced chanteuse would pick such heavy road reading. She assured us, though, that her musical tastes are about as far from flamethrowers and facepaint as you can get. “I love big melodies,” she says, “the Everly brothers, and stuff like that… there aren’t a whole lot of current bands doing that. Though of course,” she admits, “I love Grizzly Bear like any other Brooklyn girl.”
Swelling orchestral interludes — trombone, tuba, clarinet and violin intermingle with ethereal electric guitar — are certainly her band’s specialty. Members of Bierut and The National bring their special brand of indie shimmer to Clare’s sound, while husband Olivier Manchon, who has a background in French classical music, is adept at spinning the melodies she writes into intricate, vaguely Parisian arrangements. “To have it be complex and seem simple,” Clare says, “I think that’s the ultimate challenge.” Listening to the pristine compositions on Arrow, we just have to say fait accompli, Clare.
There’s nothing wrong with approaching life as a glass-half-full person.
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.