In the past few years, Clarice Jensen has forged her own path. Recently, her focus has shifted to film scoring, successfully recording work for three feature films between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Clarice continues to serve as artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, while continually collaborating with an impressive array of musicians, such as Max Richter, Björk and Stars of the Lid, to name a few.
That being said, it was her 2019 tape release on Geographic North, Drone Studies, that initially caught the attention of a wider audience, with the work showcasing a compelling assembly of deeply immersive drones, and elegantly orchestrated compositions, in which neoclassical elements collide with electric density.
Three years later, the work has lost none of its innovative character and appeal. It also documents a turning point in Clarice's career, one where her classically trained background started to converged and overlap with her interests in improvisational electronics and drone music. As a result, the aptly titled Drone Studies shows Clarice at her most exploratory, introspective, and daring, channeling her areas of interest into a collage of richly textured timbers and cello movements of sublime... tension.
Now for the first time, the original album can be experienced through an expanded vinyl reissue, mastered by Rafael Anton Irissari, and carefully adjusted for vinyl by Ian Hawgood. The new reissue also features an additional track by Clarice called Platonic Solids 2, which was originally conceived around the same time as Drone Studies, and which has now been made available exclusively for the vinyl edition and on the Vaagner Bandcamp.
We hope that this new reissue will aid in introducing Clarice's groundbreaking Drone Studies to a new crowd of listeners through this expanded edition.
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Original press text from Geographic North, 2019:
Clarice Jensen is a composer and cellist based in Brooklyn, NYC. As a versatile collaborator, Jensen has recorded and performed with Jóhann Jóhannsson, Stars of the Lid, Owen Pallett, Max Richter and numerous others. As the artistic director of ACME (the American Contemporary Music Ensemble), brought to life some of the most cherished works of modern classical music, including pieces by Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Terry Riley, Gavin Bryars, Dustin O’Halloran, and more.
Jensen now follows her debut album 'For This From That Will Be Filled' with 'Drone Studies,' highlighting Jensen’s improvisational prowess, venturing even deeper into the meditative mire but with more organic, naturally expressive air.
“The Organ that Made You Bleed” presents a succinctly striking suite that opens in medias res, awakening in a howling chorus of disembodied tones. This tragic ocean of estranged sound ebbs and flows, almost unnoticeable growing in a swell of hymnal hysteria. The calmly chaotic frenzy soon gives way into a layered composite of deep drones and tidal textures. Hopeful harmonies clash with eerie dissonance, suggesting the deeply human balance between darkness and lightness. It’s a magnum opus told in a sequence sketches, and each new turn is a cavern of radiant resonance.
'One Bee' perfectly foils the A-side with an insomniatic interplay of pure tones and richly repetitive cello phrases. The piece begins as a blank canvas, simultaneously empty and brimming with potential. One by one, solitary tones reveal themselves in the foreground until forming a small choir of complementary combinations. This beautifully odd ritual plays out in slow motion as Jensen’s cello performs a tight loop of emotionally expressive notes.
Taken as a whole, 'Drone Studies' a harrowing set of deep listening that uncovers new gifts with each repeated listen.
