Hello my dear friends and music lovers! At first I planned to present you more hottiest music of the Fanfare Ciocărlia brass orchestra - the best matching thing to a summer days... but sh..t happened - I received a letter from the US State Department with a warning that my promotion of musical titles does not meet the recommended quota for lesbians and African Americans, which would not be tolerated. This was the first warning, and I don’t want to wait for the second one. Therefore, in today’s program you will hear (and see) Benjamin Clementine - he is a worthy child of the African continent. In the meantime, I'm off looking for suitable musicians for the next release - the true daughters of the rainbow. Have a good time!
Benjamin Clementine - Adios
Benjamin Clementine is one of the most soulful creatures out there and his music makes the strings of my soul trembling in a second. His heart is bleeding because he feels the essence of life like no one else.
Born in North London, Clementine is completely self-taught and unique artist. At the age of 19 he moved spontaneously to Paris to live a homeless life - he busked for living until A&R agent discovered him. He produced several LPs after that, one each 4 years. 'Glorious You' is his second EP.
His music style has been classed as ‘expressionism’, but some jazz names surely come to your mind, and the name of my fave Nina Simone inevitably comes to mind as well. Not only his voice is beautiful, but his face too ... and his lyrics... and piano playing... just wow! unique artist.
Benjamin Clementine - Quiver A Little
It's hard for me to pick best songs, that approach doesn't work with this artist for me. All his songs seem to be little similar to each other, they look like fragments of a holographic rose, each contains an imprint of the whole his creativity - the voice, the singing manner / style, the unevenness and whimsicality of the arrangements, frequent changes of rhythm and structure, ....ugh! writing about music is the lot of music critics, they are the ones who pay the money, not me :)
...but this certain track, 'Adios' - I remember playing it on playback for hours, simply being not able to change it for anything else!
In one of his videos he played a role of torero using US flag, high in the mountains. Was it just a cryptic artistic gesture without any true reason behind? what could he be hinting at and what did he want to say - what do you think?..
Benjamin Clementine - Phantom Of Aleppoville
This was not a mainstream music, and you are not supposed to fall in love with it momentarily. But give it at least a chance. 😎 The post goes for Three Tune Tuesday challenge run by @ablaze. Previous issues: 106 | 107 | 108 | 109 | 110 | 111 | 112 | 113 | 114 | 115 | 116 | 118 | 121 | 122 | 123 | 124 | 125 | 126 | 127 | 128 | 129 | 131 | 140 | 141 | 142 | 143 | 144 | 146 | 147 | 148 | 149 | 151 | 152 | 154 | 156 | 157 | 158