Clearlake
Indie Rock / Alternative
In January 2000, four young men, Jason Pegg (voice, piano, guitar), Sam Hewitt (keyboards, devices), Woody Woodward (bass, omnichord) and James Butcher (drums, percussion), emerged blinking from their bunker on the south coast of England with the marvellous Winterlight - the first single on Domino offshoot Dusty Company - which amazed everyone concerned by picking up copious daytime Radio 1 plays, being awarded Single Of the Week in all the music papers, selling out its limited pressing in a fortnight and slipping into the Top 100. A year of frenzied activity followed: three tours Britain, two visits to Europe, four radio sessions, a TV show in Abbey Road, Scott Walker’s Meltdown with Elliot Smith, collecting venerable fans with subsequent singles (Don’t Let the Cold In prompted Jarvis Cocker to invite them to support Pulp, Something To Look Forward To took them out on the road with The Delgados) and somehow, in the middle of all this, recording their first album, Clearlake Lido, during occasional visits to a studio in Hove.
“We aim to write songs that engage people emotionally but are set in their own sonic universe,” said frontman Jason Pegg.at the time “We’re so affected by music. It’s a way of bringing order to abstract sound, to balance disarray and beauty and that’s why it’s eternally fascinating.”
Clearlake Lido arrived on April 2, 2001 to superb reviews, another British tour and a slot on Later With Jools Holland. A fourth single Let Go garnered loads of airplay and heralded a short tour of the summer festivals. Then the boys announced that they were going to start work on album two and would see us in the new year with the result. Things didn’t go quite as planned. Nothing life-threatening, just that good music can take time and Jason, not one of nature’s hurriers, let the sessions take their course.
They began in a ramshackle cottage in the middle of France and continued in Jason’s Brighton flat, before being mixed by former Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde, and engineer Giles Hall. The result, Cedars, is a terrific collection consolidating the Clearlake sound, but capturing more depth and power than ever before.
“We’re constantly trying to find the exact mid-point between raw chaos and Tin Pan Alley,” says Jason. “We want to offer the opportunity within every song to go somewhere special. We always aim really high. Even if we occasionally miss the target, we always land somewhere interesting.”
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