’The UK is a hostile environment to do art’: Tara Clerkin Trio on the​ir bold, bright music – and the fight working class artists face

The British band’s breezy, collagist sound has charmed underground music fans – though it belies the family and financial strife that went into their beautiful second LP

During a session for their 2020 debut album, Tara Clerkin Trio were interrupted by building work taking place outside. Scrapes and clangs of scaffolding got caught in the chord loop they were making on a childhood keyboard at the time. Rather than scrap the recording and start again, they grew attached to the soft dissonance of the metal, and sought to replicate it in the final version of the song. They ended up using a more audible clip from a royalty-free sample website, Tara Clerkin recalls, laughing. “We had to credit the guy who had recorded the sound on the sleevenotes.”

These happy accidents and incidental noises have gone on to shape much of the Bristol-formed band’s breezy, collage-like sound, which has charmed underground music fans across the spectrum (including jazz heads – despite the name, they stress that they are not a jazz band). That first album is now on its fourth repress and they’ve released two acclaimed EPs since. Drifting somewhere between minimalist jazz, avant-pop and trip-hop, their looping compositions are born from hours of improvising and layering. Their melodies clatter, clonk and wander in strange directions around Clerkin’s daydreamy incantations, conjured from a motley crew of instruments they can and can’t play properly.