Almost four years on from the eerie, atmospheric Pendulous Moon, Clara Hill returns with her sixth album, showcasing once again her ceaseless urge for reinvention. Driven by a craving for spontaneity – to let her ideas Shine – and especially inspired by her travels, both earthly and spiritual, it’s an unusually contemplative record that’s also the first she’s written and produced alone. Conceived amid natural surroundings – from Mexico to Canada to Sicily – its idyllically acoustic, subtly psychedelic, sedately soulful folk largely eschews electronic embellishments in favour of a combination of reflective soul and the moods of 60s/70s Brazilian `tristeza´, making it an honest, instinctive, affecting expression of Hill’s voice at its purest.
FACTS:
1: You don’t need to be something, if you just be yourself.
2: The greatest thing in life you can learn is to love and be loved in return.
3: The nature has all the answers and all the answers are inside of you.
QUESTIONS:
1. What is the biggest inspiration for your music?
nature, the silence, the vastness, sounds & noises, synths, other people’s music, profound magic moments, deep conversations, movie scenes, birds, flowers, observing the growth process how a bud becomes a flower, the transience
2. How and when did you get into making music?
I remember when i was a child, i loved the blackbirds voices and i already was fascinated by the sound of my bulgarian plastic guitar. Later I learned singing and playing piano by ear. I was always fascinated by sounds around me. I jumped into another world by experimenting with instruments. Also my mom gave me a lot of music to listen to: from The Beatles, Isaac hayes, brasilian music over classical music to Pink Floyd. I always felt that i wanted to be a musician. Finally with 17 years i started my own band with a friend and began to write and sing my own songs.
3. What are 5 of your favourite works of all time?
1.) Nick Drake: Pink Moon
2.) Boards of Canada: Music Has The Right To Children
3.) Linda Perhacs: Parallelograms
4.) Jorge Ben: live MPB Especial (1972)
5.) Broadcast: Tender Buttons
(The music of Bach)
4. What do you associate with Berlin?
The town i grew up. The place i always wanted to be. The place where suddenly the whole world wanted to be. The place which transformed me. A former divided city in a country which does not exist anymore. The place i don’t want to be anymore.
5. What’s your favourite place in your town?
My flat
6. If there was no music in the world, what would you do instead?
Interesting current question: even though there will be always music in this world, right now musicians can not really perform. So, I paint, make graphic Design & art. Maybe I would be a florist too, be a psychotherapist, one director, or create jewelry, work with wood, teach other people in music, decorate people´s flats or help handicapped people…
7. What was the last record/music you bought?
Funny question in times of Spotify and co. But the last album i bought long time ago was actually a meditation album with Zen music.
8. Who would you most like to collaborate with?
Bibio, José Gonzáles, Thundercat, Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Flying Lotus, Angelo de Augustine, Boards of Canada, …
9. What was your best gig (as performer or spectator)?
1.) My best gigs ever were in Tokyo, MADEIRADiG & Moscow.
2.) The best concerts i saw were Beastie Boys and Ride @ Loft in Berlin. And of course my first concert ever: The Rolling Stones :)
10. How important is technology to your creative process?
Technology was always important for me in the past, because the music i made was mostly based on synths and programmings. Right now i try to be more analogue again by experimenting with real instruments & field recordings. My creative process of writing music maybe necessarily does not need technology. But even if i am producing myself and finally do the recordings, i guess without technology i could not work anymore.
11. Do you have siblings and how do they feel about your career/art?
I don’t have real siblings – or maybe i have but don´t know it. But my half brother seems to be proud of my music.
Photo © Victoria Alexandrova
