Sarah Clanton – Here We Are LP 

YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKzxFwLhAk8

Few artists who have been around for the short amount of time that Nashville’s Sarah Clanton have been are able to say they’ve accomplished what she has in just a couple of studio albums. In the last three years or so, Clanton has risen out of relative obscurity to become one of the biggest names in indie pop from one end of the United State to the other. Her infused style of classical and pop (that is led by the gravity of her intense cello play) is changing the game, and her latest record Here We Are is easily her finest hour yet. Her rivals had best take a cue from its simplicity and start figuring out how they’re going to develop their own skills if they wish to keep up with the pace she’s setting.

Clanton’s knowledge of music theory is emphasized in songs like the dexterous “Silver Lining” and the exotic “On Repeat,” both of which display far more mathematically provocative song structures than anything you’re going to find on your commercial radio dial right now. There’s the constant feeling that we’re listening to an anthology piece, and indeed Here We Are has all the makings of being a multi-platinum pop sensation. There are danceable grooves met with deeply emotional moments of contemplation, and just when we think she’s run out of ideas she throws another layer of hypnotizing smoke in our direction, leaving us a combination of dazed and awe-inspired. Even if you’re not the biggest pop fan in the world, you’re going to want to give this album a spin – it transcends any barriers that genre categorization could place around it.

If you’ve been listening to her work since the very beginning, then you’re going to immediately notice how much Sarah Clanton has grown as a composer in the last couple of years. All of these songs have an angular, almost ambient sensibility to them that make them meld into one another like a singular cohesive work of art, and as much fun as it would be to cherry pick different tracks from this record and analyze why each one is individually special, I actually prefer to listen to this album as one collective treasure chest of melody and rhyme. That is, after all, exactly what Clanton has constructed for us in Here We Are.

If you’re in the market for exciting new pop music that stimulates not one of your senses but all five in a dazzling display of aesthetical wonderment, Here We Are is exactly the album that you’ve been waiting for. Due out this November, I can only imagine that this is going to be the hottest selling indie release of the holiday season and could very well lead to an international tour if Clanton wishes to embark on one. If there’s one thing that she’s known for, it’s her sterling live performances, and I have to say that after experiencing Here We Are in all of its majestic glory, she now sits comfortably and undisputedly upon the top of my “must-see” concert list.

TWITTER: https://www.instagram.com/sarahcello/?hl=en

Michael Rand