At Least For Now // Benjamin Clementine
Benjamin Clementine is a British-French musician who resembles a love child between Jimmy Neutron and Nina Simone. He is beautiful and solemn and intelligent and dramatic and, despite my embarassing comparison earlier, he is actually genuinely startlingly unique and his music, intelligent and free from any genre. He is also a storyteller and a poet and his lyrics would not even be out of place in a (non-cheesy) dramatic monologue.
His debut album, At Least For Now, has been rightly nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize and deserves to win because, as a composite composition, it is in a league of its own. Clementine’s sound is not any shabby attempt to fit into or challenge any pop song frame, but exists in its own world and projects an illustrious image of the future of music, with exciting and rich mixtures of interesting sounds.
The album is mostly piano and vocals, yet manages to maintain more interest throughout than any overdone, ostentatious, electronic grotesqueness. The piano introducing the album is mysterious and sweet, the cello is beautiful as it enters and Clementine manages to successfully create songs using strings without sounding pretentious. Every note the violins play adds something to each song. The mixture of electronic sounds into the mix also keep the album sonically relevant, but it is Clementine’s voice, which reigns over all. Every word he sings, speaks, raps, shouts, whispers, growls, resonates within the listener and is infused with the melodic excitement and creativity that prevail throughout the album. He uses his great range to reach powerful, thrilling notes, especially in his closing song, ‘Gone’, reminiscent of great black operatic soul singers like Jackie Wilson, my favourite.
At Least For Now is exquisite because Clementine manages to create his own unique sound that detaches from traditional Western expectations without forcing any stereotypical cultural clichés.
Words by Samm Anga