Clara Mann - 'Thread'
Bristolian songwriter Clara Mann delivers her ethereal new single ‘Thread’.
At just 20 years old Clara Mann has made a big stamp in the music world with her previous EP ‘Consolations’ released by tastemakers Sad Club Records before her recent signing to 7476 where new label mates include Lizzie Reid, Mathilda Mann & Matt Maltese.
‘Thread’ opens with warm picked guitar, dreamy synth textures and haunting harmonies, before the chorus hits us with gorgeous string arrangements that lift the track elegantly to grow through the sections. Clara was raised with an appreciation of choral music and love of painting. She draws influence from story-teller songwriters such as Molly Drake and Judee Sill, toying with ambiguous and poetic lyric writing, allowing the listener more opportunity to create their own connections.
Her latest offering Thread comes accompanied by an Alice in Wonderland style music video that you can't take your eyes away from. Starting in a black and white old-fashioned theatre, Mann is crying watching the film roll. When the instrumentation changes and percussion enters in the 2nd verse, we’re burst into a colourful clown style stage with hanging crying cushions of clouds and stars. It feels nostalgic and poignant alongside her delicate soaring vocal melodies.
The track is dedicated to Maggie, as credited at the end of the video. On Maggie, Clara says “I wrote this the night I got home after spending three months living with my boyfriend in a one room cabin on Dartmoor. The cabin was at the edge of a farm owned by a wonderful woman called Maggie, who was in her 90s- over the three months, she became incredibly important to me. She had immense spirit, an absolutely wicked sense of humour, and was an incredibly powerful presence on the farm. We’d spend hours with her in the kitchen in the evenings, cooking for her and laughing- I loved her so much.
“That night, when I got home, I got a call saying Maggie had gone into hospital, and that she might be dying. I didn’t know what to do, all I could do was try and hold onto her in my heart. I suddenly wrote Thread, and recorded it on my phone. It’s dedicated to her, but it’s about the whole of that autumn, and the grief and magic of that strange time. Maggie survived that night, and lived another year, before leaving us about a month ago. Traces of her light remain, and she touched me and many others deeply- I hope we meet again someday.”
Clara Mann is heading out on tour this week supporting Grizzly Bears Daniel Rossen across his UK and EU dates, where you can catch her one of London's finest venues Union Chapel on May 20th.
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