Tara Clerkin Trio

Tara Clerkin Trio are Pat Benjamin, Sunny Joe Paradisos and Tara Clerkin, three musicians involved in a number of cult Bristol bands over the years before confidently settling down in triangle formation.

They are inspired by and borrow from jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia & minimalism, twirling the non-pretentious strands of these threads together into a trippy green winged-cloak, adorning Arthur Russell and dripping in blue jam.With two extraordinary mini-albums - In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) - making a splash on London’s formidable World of Echo label in wake of their self-titled 2020 debut, Tara Clerkin Trio’s upcoming Somewhere Good LP is, in many ways, the band’s most realised work.In running their usual gauntlet of idiosyncratic (an overused adjective for which here there is regrettably no sufficient alternative) approaches, Clerkin & co. colour in and outside of compositional lines over the course of 40+ celebratory minutes - never wallowing, despite inherently somber subject matters of self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness, gentrification - allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to situate, stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate, and ultimately take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination - all while somehow sounding more like themselves than ever before.The hazy, unmappable skyline-mirage of droning harmonium, upright bass, peculiarly accentuated wind instruments, acoustic guitar, hushed yet literally mighty keys combine to hypnotizing effect.

The band may make underlying nods to jazz, sure, but it’s not appropriation, it’s that they have the actual chops to build it out.

Beneath the janky samples and oddball percussive embellishment lies actually great drumming.Beyond the manipulated vocal witchery and woefully reflective plain-spoke moments are Tara’s subtly inspiredmelodies, sung with what might honestly be the glue to the whole crazy equation.

A calming consistency throughout the otherwise unpredictably dynamic, boldly intuitive, uniquely British exploration of this (their own) universe in song.