'The UK is a hostile environment to do art': Tara Clerkin Trio on their bold, bright music and the fight working class artists face

During recording for a 2020 debut album, scaffolding work outside interrupted the trio’s chord loop on a childhood keyboard. Instead of restarting, they embraced the soft dissonance of the metal and incorporated a similar texture into the final song. They used an audible clip from a royalty-free sample source and credited the original recorder in the sleeve notes. These accidental sounds became part of the Bristol-formed band’s collage-like approach, alongside other found noises such as footsteps and chimes. The trio sometimes samples themselves by warping and recycling earlier recordings, reducing copyright clearance needs. Their looping compositions are built from improvisation and layering, producing full, uncanny music despite being only three members.

"During a session for their 2020 debut album, Tara Clerkin Trio were interrupted by building work taking place outside. Scrapes and clangs of scaffolding got caught in the chord loop they were making on a childhood keyboard at the time. Rather than scrap the recording and start again, they grew attached to the soft dissonance of the metal, and sought to replicate it in the final version of the song."

"They ended up using a more audible clip from a royalty-free sample website, Tara Clerkin recalls, laughing. We had to credit the guy who had recorded the sound on the sleevenotes. These happy accidents and incidental noises have gone on to shape much of the Bristol-formed band's breezy, collage-like sound, which has charmed underground music fans across the spectrum."

"Occasionally the band, made up of Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos and his younger brother Pat Benjamin, even sample themselves, warping and recycling past recordings. The more you sample yourself, the less samples you have to clear (for copyright) says Paradisos, wryly. You just make your own noises. It is impressive how full their music can sound, despite there being just three of them."

"Drifting somewhere between minimalist jazz, avant-pop and trip-hop, their looping compositions are born from hours of improvising and layering. Their melodies clatter, clonk and wander in strange directions around Clerkin's daydreamy incantations, conjured from a motley crew of instruments they can and can't play properly. Like the scaffolding, the found sounds that lurk around Tara Clerkin Trio's tracks enhance their uncanny atmosphere."

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