CLARA HILL is one of the leading figures of Berlin-based label Sonar Kollektiv. With an impressive discography including the two critically acclaimed full-length albums Restless Times (SK074CD/LP) and All I Can Provide (SK099CD/LP) and many 12“s featuring the crème de la crème of Electronic and Jazz knob twidlers such as JAZZANOVA, ATJAZZ, VIKTER DUPLAIX, CHARLES WEBSTER, SLOPE, and KING BRITT. CLARA HILL belongs to those few artists that can look back on their previous work and still be proud of it.
During those years CLARA HILL also built up her reputation as a great live vocalist with several bands. She also recorded with STEFAN LEISERING and AXEL REINEMER of EXTENDED SPIRIT (2/6 of JAZZANOVA) and had a first hit with label mate GEORG LEVIN and his (I Got) Somebody New (SK018) that became a classic track of Sonar Kollektiv’s discography. But CLARA HILL is not only a talented vocalist with a soulful and delicate voice.
She is also a multi-faceted artist with the ability to span over the music genres with elegance. Coming from an acid-jazz background – she was singing in her own acid-jazz band SUPERJUICE in the early ’90s – CLARA never stopped discovering and experimenting with new styles. And after two albums of “Future Soul-Jazz†music blending sophisticated acid-jazz beats with soothing moods and emotive orchestrations, CLARA HILL now returns to her first influences with a brand-new project called CLARA HILL’S FOLKWAVES and an album entitled Sideways (SK161 CD).
Folk has been part of her musical influences from the beginning and with this project she intends to shed a light on a hidden side of her artistic personality. For this special opus she crafted 10 delicious acoustic-based and folk-oriented songs highlighting perfectly her passionate and rapturous voice.
As CLARA explains it : „after working two years on the last album I had to make something new, something pure and something calm“. This new breath of inspiration came from listening more to guitar music of artists such as NICK DRAKE, JOSE GONZALEZ, RIVULETS and lots of BEATLES again.
She rediscovered her roots at a special moment of her life „when I was 16 years old I was listening to grunge music and to The Beatles beside the acid-jazz and last year I felt the guitar-music again (…) the musical combination between pure vocals and pure guitars, very deep and direct“. This new singer/songwriter drive came up when the last album was in promotion time: „I wrote at night mostly(…)
I was experimenting with guitar-sides and the sound was perfect to my ears! I tried to write just simple vocal lines over the instrumentals…and I felt very good while sitting on my bed at 3 o´clock in the morning. I felt free!“ Hence the result is a very personal and very mature album loaded with intimate tales concerning matters of the heart. This is a recollection of neo-folk tunes in a very calm and slightly jazzy orchestration like Everything produced by MARC MAC from 4 HERO and Wonderful World recalling moments of joy and wellbeing.
CLARA left some space for very pure guitar and strings melodies in a sensuous atmosphere such as, If Only and Don’t Go. She also invited her friends of JAZZANOVA and EXTENDED SPIRIT, as well as singer/songwriter THIEF and NATHAN AMUNDSON from RIVULETS as male singers on her album.