Concert: Tara Clerkin Trio

Show & Culture

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 settling into a trio. They draw on jazz, trip hop, electronica, psychedelia and minimalism, with Arthur Russell among their reference points. Following their self-titled 2020 debut and two acclaimed mini-albums on London’s World of Echo label — In Spring (2021) and On The Turning Ground (2023) — their latest LP, Somewhere Good, is in many ways the band’s most realised work. Over more than 40 celebratory minutes, the trio colour inside and outside compositional lines. Despite sombre subjects including self-defeat, disease, displacement, restlessness and gentrification, they never wallow, allowing their arrangements and improvisations ample space and time to stretch out, breathe, cross-pollinate and take deeper hold on the listener’s imagination.