Josienne Clarke is an artist who doesn’t shy away from the hard truths of being a musician in the modern era. Her new album, Onliness, is a career-spanning journey through reimagined classics and hidden gems from Clarke’s back catalogue that have been reshaped to represent the artist she is today.
Opening with one of her earliest compositions – ‘The Tangled Tree‘ – and closed by a brand-new song, the album is a beautiful reminder of Clarke’s singular talent.
“I wrote that song so long ago. I always liked the guitar part I’d written. I never felt like a great guitarist, but it was mine, and I lost that over the years when I stopped playing it,” she explains. “Now I’ve put it on an electric guitar with some distortion at the edges, and I’m playing it exactly how I want to play it. Going back and reclaiming that, and playing it myself, felt like it captures the spirit of this whole project.“
The album’s title, Onliness, is a word Clarke thought she had made up but later found out already existed. “It means both solitude and singularity; being one of a kind, but also alone in the sense that you are apart from other things,” Clarke explains. “So, it has both a positive connotation and a really melancholic one–and I feel like that fits every song that I’ve ever written.“
Onliness is an album filled with profound emotion and raw honesty. It’s a creative endeavour with much more for the listener to gain than a consumerist-driven ‘best of’ record.
Onliness is out April 14th 2023, and is available for pre-order here. Don’t miss out on this gorgeous new album from one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our generation.
Listen to ‘The Tangled Tree’ by Josienne Clarke below:
