Bristol-based singer-songwriter Clara Mann has unveiled her debut single, ‘I Didn’t Know You Were Leaving Today’. Check it out below (via Sad Club Records).
Following a series of lo-fi demos on Bandcamp, the track recorded with producer Benjamin Spike-Saunders (Cruelty) and mastered by Alice Western (BUGS). In addition to Clara Mann on piano, guitar, and vocals, ‘I Didn’t Know You Were Leaving Today’ also features Marika-Tyler Clark playing the fiddle and Felix M-B on harmonium and second guitar. “It was mostly just me and my mic at my desk, willing the neighbours to keep quiet through the takes,” Mann explained in a press release. “It was okay – just a bit lonely at times!”
A classically trained musician, Mann also talked about growing up in a small village in the South of France and how that has impacted her songwriting. “The village we grew up in was (as a lot of the south of France is) deeply Catholic, so actually, religious music really affected me, at least from a musical point of view,” she said. “My family weren’t really religious, but it was so ingrained into the village life – some of the arrangements on the EP are really quite choral, which I suppose must come from that side of my life!”