Finlay Clark
Sicko
Boomkat Product Review:
Outstanding solo debut by Still House Plants' Finlay Clark; a spiky set of gonzoid iPhone snapshots and proper ensemble pieces spanning haunted chamber music, DIY grunge hymns and closing time, outsider, jazz blues punk howl - proper RIYL Jandek, Kurt Cobain, Mica Levi & Tirzah, Tom Waits, Laurie Tompkins.
’Sicko’ documents multi-instrumentalist Finlay Clark finding his voice after a breakdown. Making music as therapeutic process, Clark cuts right to the bone of his sound with an extraordinary sense of expression encompassing many strands of practice, from noirish, phantasmic chamber works (‘morning star’) to nerve-jangling, detuned guitar thrash (‘jesus’ son’) like Jandek jamming with Mica Levi, and thru to concrète inception (‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)’) and an amazing piano piece like Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru meets Tom Waits at chucking out time on a wet Sunday night. Utterly ravishing, compelling stuff that’s bound to spin more than a few heads and make an ideal balance to festive overload. It’s also quite a personal one so we’ll had over to the man for his description:
“"At the start of 2022 I was able to start articulating the breakdown that I’d had the previous year. Through writing, I was trying to engage with what had happened. I made a sketch and kept it in my notebook for months before deciding to digitally invert the same drawing for the cover of this album. I’ve been making work as though I were a child for years, using my non-dominant hand to make marks or finger-painting. The process of writing this album and the fun that I’ve had making it has truly helped me to be able to leave that bad dream behind.
Like the sketch, these tracks are not perfectly recorded. I bought a 4-track and a couple of mics and figured it out as I went along. I recorded between playing shows with Still House Plants and pushed to do as many tracks as I could each day, which I can hear in my voice. Sometimes you can hear other bands practicing in the building, which makes me laugh, but these conditions have ultimately made the album what it is. I wanted a draft finished by the end of the year and managed to do so by midnight on New Year’s Eve, phew…! No fun, my babe, no fun.
Regarding the piece for Phaedra Ensemble, it is funny to realise that I was writing songs from a place of anger while also writing this ‘utopian sounding’ music. I can see now that I have found solace in sonic world-building as a way of holding onto hope in what can so often feel like a world without much. ‘morning-star’ was one of several pieces written over Spring 2020 in my parents’ basement; it felt like an important moment in history and I wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.
The text from ‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)' is from excerpts of writing (scraps of poetry written on planes and trains with the band, diary entries) that I have been collating over the years. I sold a zine of these excerpts at the concert where the track was recorded.
Shout out to the guy at Jenny’s Cafe for being nice to me as I sat there on my lunch breaks exhausted and caffeinated while probably looking starry-eyed and a bit greasy. Good spot FFO people-watching, chips and Ribena. When I needed a neighbour, you were there."
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Boomkat Product Review:
Outstanding solo debut by Still House Plants' Finlay Clark; a spiky set of gonzoid iPhone snapshots and proper ensemble pieces spanning haunted chamber music, DIY grunge hymns and closing time, outsider, jazz blues punk howl - proper RIYL Jandek, Kurt Cobain, Mica Levi & Tirzah, Tom Waits, Laurie Tompkins.
’Sicko’ documents multi-instrumentalist Finlay Clark finding his voice after a breakdown. Making music as therapeutic process, Clark cuts right to the bone of his sound with an extraordinary sense of expression encompassing many strands of practice, from noirish, phantasmic chamber works (‘morning star’) to nerve-jangling, detuned guitar thrash (‘jesus’ son’) like Jandek jamming with Mica Levi, and thru to concrète inception (‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)’) and an amazing piano piece like Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru meets Tom Waits at chucking out time on a wet Sunday night. Utterly ravishing, compelling stuff that’s bound to spin more than a few heads and make an ideal balance to festive overload. It’s also quite a personal one so we’ll had over to the man for his description:
“"At the start of 2022 I was able to start articulating the breakdown that I’d had the previous year. Through writing, I was trying to engage with what had happened. I made a sketch and kept it in my notebook for months before deciding to digitally invert the same drawing for the cover of this album. I’ve been making work as though I were a child for years, using my non-dominant hand to make marks or finger-painting. The process of writing this album and the fun that I’ve had making it has truly helped me to be able to leave that bad dream behind.
Like the sketch, these tracks are not perfectly recorded. I bought a 4-track and a couple of mics and figured it out as I went along. I recorded between playing shows with Still House Plants and pushed to do as many tracks as I could each day, which I can hear in my voice. Sometimes you can hear other bands practicing in the building, which makes me laugh, but these conditions have ultimately made the album what it is. I wanted a draft finished by the end of the year and managed to do so by midnight on New Year’s Eve, phew…! No fun, my babe, no fun.
Regarding the piece for Phaedra Ensemble, it is funny to realise that I was writing songs from a place of anger while also writing this ‘utopian sounding’ music. I can see now that I have found solace in sonic world-building as a way of holding onto hope in what can so often feel like a world without much. ‘morning-star’ was one of several pieces written over Spring 2020 in my parents’ basement; it felt like an important moment in history and I wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.
The text from ‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)' is from excerpts of writing (scraps of poetry written on planes and trains with the band, diary entries) that I have been collating over the years. I sold a zine of these excerpts at the concert where the track was recorded.
Shout out to the guy at Jenny’s Cafe for being nice to me as I sat there on my lunch breaks exhausted and caffeinated while probably looking starry-eyed and a bit greasy. Good spot FFO people-watching, chips and Ribena. When I needed a neighbour, you were there."
Boomkat Product Review:
Outstanding solo debut by Still House Plants' Finlay Clark; a spiky set of gonzoid iPhone snapshots and proper ensemble pieces spanning haunted chamber music, DIY grunge hymns and closing time, outsider, jazz blues punk howl - proper RIYL Jandek, Kurt Cobain, Mica Levi & Tirzah, Tom Waits, Laurie Tompkins.
’Sicko’ documents multi-instrumentalist Finlay Clark finding his voice after a breakdown. Making music as therapeutic process, Clark cuts right to the bone of his sound with an extraordinary sense of expression encompassing many strands of practice, from noirish, phantasmic chamber works (‘morning star’) to nerve-jangling, detuned guitar thrash (‘jesus’ son’) like Jandek jamming with Mica Levi, and thru to concrète inception (‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)’) and an amazing piano piece like Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru meets Tom Waits at chucking out time on a wet Sunday night. Utterly ravishing, compelling stuff that’s bound to spin more than a few heads and make an ideal balance to festive overload. It’s also quite a personal one so we’ll had over to the man for his description:
“"At the start of 2022 I was able to start articulating the breakdown that I’d had the previous year. Through writing, I was trying to engage with what had happened. I made a sketch and kept it in my notebook for months before deciding to digitally invert the same drawing for the cover of this album. I’ve been making work as though I were a child for years, using my non-dominant hand to make marks or finger-painting. The process of writing this album and the fun that I’ve had making it has truly helped me to be able to leave that bad dream behind.
Like the sketch, these tracks are not perfectly recorded. I bought a 4-track and a couple of mics and figured it out as I went along. I recorded between playing shows with Still House Plants and pushed to do as many tracks as I could each day, which I can hear in my voice. Sometimes you can hear other bands practicing in the building, which makes me laugh, but these conditions have ultimately made the album what it is. I wanted a draft finished by the end of the year and managed to do so by midnight on New Year’s Eve, phew…! No fun, my babe, no fun.
Regarding the piece for Phaedra Ensemble, it is funny to realise that I was writing songs from a place of anger while also writing this ‘utopian sounding’ music. I can see now that I have found solace in sonic world-building as a way of holding onto hope in what can so often feel like a world without much. ‘morning-star’ was one of several pieces written over Spring 2020 in my parents’ basement; it felt like an important moment in history and I wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.
The text from ‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)' is from excerpts of writing (scraps of poetry written on planes and trains with the band, diary entries) that I have been collating over the years. I sold a zine of these excerpts at the concert where the track was recorded.
Shout out to the guy at Jenny’s Cafe for being nice to me as I sat there on my lunch breaks exhausted and caffeinated while probably looking starry-eyed and a bit greasy. Good spot FFO people-watching, chips and Ribena. When I needed a neighbour, you were there."
Boomkat Product Review:
Outstanding solo debut by Still House Plants' Finlay Clark; a spiky set of gonzoid iPhone snapshots and proper ensemble pieces spanning haunted chamber music, DIY grunge hymns and closing time, outsider, jazz blues punk howl - proper RIYL Jandek, Kurt Cobain, Mica Levi & Tirzah, Tom Waits, Laurie Tompkins.
’Sicko’ documents multi-instrumentalist Finlay Clark finding his voice after a breakdown. Making music as therapeutic process, Clark cuts right to the bone of his sound with an extraordinary sense of expression encompassing many strands of practice, from noirish, phantasmic chamber works (‘morning star’) to nerve-jangling, detuned guitar thrash (‘jesus’ son’) like Jandek jamming with Mica Levi, and thru to concrète inception (‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)’) and an amazing piano piece like Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru meets Tom Waits at chucking out time on a wet Sunday night. Utterly ravishing, compelling stuff that’s bound to spin more than a few heads and make an ideal balance to festive overload. It’s also quite a personal one so we’ll had over to the man for his description:
“"At the start of 2022 I was able to start articulating the breakdown that I’d had the previous year. Through writing, I was trying to engage with what had happened. I made a sketch and kept it in my notebook for months before deciding to digitally invert the same drawing for the cover of this album. I’ve been making work as though I were a child for years, using my non-dominant hand to make marks or finger-painting. The process of writing this album and the fun that I’ve had making it has truly helped me to be able to leave that bad dream behind.
Like the sketch, these tracks are not perfectly recorded. I bought a 4-track and a couple of mics and figured it out as I went along. I recorded between playing shows with Still House Plants and pushed to do as many tracks as I could each day, which I can hear in my voice. Sometimes you can hear other bands practicing in the building, which makes me laugh, but these conditions have ultimately made the album what it is. I wanted a draft finished by the end of the year and managed to do so by midnight on New Year’s Eve, phew…! No fun, my babe, no fun.
Regarding the piece for Phaedra Ensemble, it is funny to realise that I was writing songs from a place of anger while also writing this ‘utopian sounding’ music. I can see now that I have found solace in sonic world-building as a way of holding onto hope in what can so often feel like a world without much. ‘morning-star’ was one of several pieces written over Spring 2020 in my parents’ basement; it felt like an important moment in history and I wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.
The text from ‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)' is from excerpts of writing (scraps of poetry written on planes and trains with the band, diary entries) that I have been collating over the years. I sold a zine of these excerpts at the concert where the track was recorded.
Shout out to the guy at Jenny’s Cafe for being nice to me as I sat there on my lunch breaks exhausted and caffeinated while probably looking starry-eyed and a bit greasy. Good spot FFO people-watching, chips and Ribena. When I needed a neighbour, you were there."
Additional mixing by Shaun Crooke Mastered by Amir Shoat Artwork by Finlay Clark. Comes with a download.
Out of Stock
Boomkat Product Review:
Outstanding solo debut by Still House Plants' Finlay Clark; a spiky set of gonzoid iPhone snapshots and proper ensemble pieces spanning haunted chamber music, DIY grunge hymns and closing time, outsider, jazz blues punk howl - proper RIYL Jandek, Kurt Cobain, Mica Levi & Tirzah, Tom Waits, Laurie Tompkins.
’Sicko’ documents multi-instrumentalist Finlay Clark finding his voice after a breakdown. Making music as therapeutic process, Clark cuts right to the bone of his sound with an extraordinary sense of expression encompassing many strands of practice, from noirish, phantasmic chamber works (‘morning star’) to nerve-jangling, detuned guitar thrash (‘jesus’ son’) like Jandek jamming with Mica Levi, and thru to concrète inception (‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)’) and an amazing piano piece like Emahoy Tsegue-Mariam Gebru meets Tom Waits at chucking out time on a wet Sunday night. Utterly ravishing, compelling stuff that’s bound to spin more than a few heads and make an ideal balance to festive overload. It’s also quite a personal one so we’ll had over to the man for his description:
“"At the start of 2022 I was able to start articulating the breakdown that I’d had the previous year. Through writing, I was trying to engage with what had happened. I made a sketch and kept it in my notebook for months before deciding to digitally invert the same drawing for the cover of this album. I’ve been making work as though I were a child for years, using my non-dominant hand to make marks or finger-painting. The process of writing this album and the fun that I’ve had making it has truly helped me to be able to leave that bad dream behind.
Like the sketch, these tracks are not perfectly recorded. I bought a 4-track and a couple of mics and figured it out as I went along. I recorded between playing shows with Still House Plants and pushed to do as many tracks as I could each day, which I can hear in my voice. Sometimes you can hear other bands practicing in the building, which makes me laugh, but these conditions have ultimately made the album what it is. I wanted a draft finished by the end of the year and managed to do so by midnight on New Year’s Eve, phew…! No fun, my babe, no fun.
Regarding the piece for Phaedra Ensemble, it is funny to realise that I was writing songs from a place of anger while also writing this ‘utopian sounding’ music. I can see now that I have found solace in sonic world-building as a way of holding onto hope in what can so often feel like a world without much. ‘morning-star’ was one of several pieces written over Spring 2020 in my parents’ basement; it felt like an important moment in history and I wanted to try and capture the zeitgeist.
The text from ‘Oblivion (excerpt 1)' is from excerpts of writing (scraps of poetry written on planes and trains with the band, diary entries) that I have been collating over the years. I sold a zine of these excerpts at the concert where the track was recorded.
Shout out to the guy at Jenny’s Cafe for being nice to me as I sat there on my lunch breaks exhausted and caffeinated while probably looking starry-eyed and a bit greasy. Good spot FFO people-watching, chips and Ribena. When I needed a neighbour, you were there."
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