During a recording session for their 2020 debut album, the Tara Clerkin Trio were interrupted by construction work outside. The scraping and clanging of scaffolding became entangled with the chord loop they were creating on a vintage keyboard. Instead of discarding the recording and starting over, they became fond of the gentle dissonance of the metal and sought to replicate it in the final version of the song. They ultimately used a more audible clip from a royalty-free sample website, as Tara Clerkin recalls with a laugh. "We had to credit the guy who had recorded the sound on the sleevenotes."
These serendipitous accidents and incidental noises have significantly shaped the Bristol-formed band's breezy, collage-like sound, which has captivated underground music fans across various genres, including jazz enthusiasts—though the band stresses they are not a jazz group. Their debut album is now on its fourth repress, and they have released two acclaimed EPs since. Their music drifts somewhere between minimalist jazz, avant-pop, and trip-hop, with looping compositions born from hours of improvisation and layering. Their melodies clatter, clank, and wander in unexpected directions around Clerkin's dreamy incantations, conjured from a motley assortment of instruments they can and cannot play proficiently.
The found sounds that lurk throughout Tara Clerkin Trio's tracks enhance their uncanny atmosphere, whether it's footsteps or chimes. Occasionally, the band—comprising Clerkin, her partner Sunny Joe Paradisos, and his younger brother Pat Benjamin—even samples themselves, warping and recycling past recordings. "The more you sample yourself, the fewer 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 only three of them (a previous version of the band had eight members). "It's a cliche, but limitation does force you to be creative," says Benjamin, before Paradisos adds, "It's all the power of the loop pedal. That's our fourth member."
We meet in a pub in Stoke Newington, north London, near where Clerkin and Paradisos now live (Benjamin remains in Bristol). They are preparing to release their second album, Somewhere Good, their most pop-oriented record yet, which critics are already calling a potential album of the year. While it still features their signature scattering of oddball sounds (a comb, a wicker lamp), it feels like a step in a new direction: more structured songwriting and storytelling, plus vocals from Paradisos for the first time. On one track, they even abandon the loop pedal. "Like a real band," Benjamin quips.
The album arrives three years after their last EP, a period fraught with challenges. After living in Bristol for 16 years, Clerkin and Paradisos were priced out of their rented home. Then they moved to Liverpool to care for Clerkin's ill mother, a situation that forced the band to cancel a US tour and take a six-month break. "It was by far the shittiest year I think I'll probably ever live through," says Paradisos.
The lure of job opportunities brought the couple to London, where they have been juggling to make finances work over the past six months through pet sitting, sofa-surfing, and subletting. They almost could not make today's interview. "I've got two new bosses texting me, like: 'What's your availability next week?'" says Paradisos, who also works as a landscaper. "I was like, I don't know, because I have this quite important thing that's happening at some point, but also I can't afford to lose these jobs and not earn."
The new album was made in similarly precarious circumstances, written and recorded between tour dates in a string of different flats, studios, and Airbnbs. The final mix took place on a laptop in the New York Public Library, and the masters made their journey from an airport in Cyprus. "It was a time when we were just touring like crazy," says Benjamin. "Between that and working, it's so hard to find the times where it would just be like: oh, we've got a three-day gap ... Let's find a studio that we can do some stuff in."
They laugh about it now, but that balancing act, paired with the situation back home, almost pushed them to give up. "I kind of feel like a more sensible person in our situation would have stopped doing it a while ago," says Clerkin, only half-joking.
It is all part of what Paradisos refers to as a "hostile environment to do art" in the UK, something the band is still adjusting to almost a decade in. "It's really quite rare to come across working-class artists, because there's basically a rule that you have to do it and not get paid for 10 years," Clerkin says. "Doing tours three times a year or whatever, you can't really go and get a full-time job. But then the tours don't pay for you to live the rest of the time."
As with their last two EPs, the album is coming out on the in-house label of east London record shop World of Echo, with whom they have become friends. After speaking to several A&R people at bigger labels, they concluded that an advance to make an album "is like a payday loan," says Paradisos. "If you give away so many rights, you'll never get another penny from your music."
The new album captures some of these qualms: "Lazy Daisy" is about losing a job, while "Silently" contemplates grief. Later, "Slow Island" mourns a place made unrecognisable by gentrification. But an optimism shines through in the sprightly chords, playful percussion, and Clerkin's high, bright voice. "Even though we were going through so much, we wanted to make something that was positive—something that recognised pain in an honest way, but also offered some sort of momentum forwards," she says. "Like, we are still doing it, even though we've hated how skint we've been for many years. We carry on because we love it and it feels like one of the most meaningful things we can do with our time."
Somewhere Good is released via World of Echo on 5 June.
