Monday, again?! Hope you've all had a lovely (snowy?) weekend... I've been really getting into a spot of birdwatching and rediscovering my love for photography through wildlife recently, and spent much of the weekend staring at birds at my local nature reserve and through my window. Snowy weather guides me towards the sort of music that gives that same warm feeling you get sitting by a fire, and this new Clara Mann tune does just that.
Thoughtless follows debut Spotify release (after some lo-fi Bandcamp demos) I Didn't Know You Were Leaving Today - in both we are utterly transported by Clara's intimate and unique vocals. For me, they offer up something that feels at once new while harking back to more traditional folk music. The track is taken from her upcoming debut EP, entitled Consolations, which is due on Feb 24th. The EP was recorded remotely in Clara's bedroom, with producer Benjamin Spike-Saunders mixing in his. It's hard not to make that connection with the homely, heartwarming feeling that the tracks bring.
Speaking about the new track, Clara explains "I wrote this over a summer where I was totally adrift - it was quite a lonely time, and I felt that, in a bid for some kind of connection, I was making myself vulnerable to the wrong people. Thoughtless is a recognition of that unhealthy tendency in myself, as well as being about the way people can take too much of someone, without even realising."
On the influence of water through the track, she writes "there's a lot about water in the song, about the sea, the waves. I grew up by a river in France, and I think have always felt most at home in landscapes with water nearby. It's a mixture of finding it comforting and familiar, but also being aware of he power of the current, the tide, or the swell, and feeling helpless and fragile next to them. The guitar part in Thoughtless unintentionally mimics the rise and fall of waves, and I like the way the melody floats above it. I remember finding it quite painful to write - it felt very raw. I was very into Sorolla's paintings at the time, and the way he paints light - I wanted to do that with music, with my words."
