Philip Clemo is a British composer, musician, producer, sound artist, filmmaker and visual artist, described by Propermusic.com as one of

contemporary music Contemporary classical music is classical music composed close to the present day. At the beginning of the 21st century, it commonly referred to the post-1945 modern forms of post-tonal music after the death of Anton Webern, and included serial ...

's most innovative artists.

Early life

Philip James Clemo was born on 3 August 1964 in

Insch Insch ( gd, An Innis or Innis Mo Bheathain) is a village in the Garioch, Aberdeenshire, Scotland. It is located approximately from the city of Aberdeen. Etymology The name of the village may have come from the Scottish Gaelic ''innis'', me ...

Aberdeenshire Aberdeenshire ( sco, Aiberdeenshire; gd, Siorrachd Obar Dheathain) is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland#council areas of Scotland, council areas of Scotland. It takes its name from the County of Aberdeen which has substantially differe ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. In his teens Clemo learnt guitar from singer-songwriter Iain MacDonald who introduced him to the works of

Nick Drake Nicholas Rodney Drake (19 June 1948 – 25 November 1974) was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognit ...

Tim Buckley Timothy Charles Buckley III (February 14, 1947 – June 29, 1975) was an American musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years. Buckley began his career based in folk music, but his subsequent albums experimented with ja ...

Van Morrison Sir George Ivan Morrison (born 31 August 1945), known professionally as Van Morrison, is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist whose recording career spans seven decades. He has won two Grammy Awards. As a teenager in t ...

Jimi Hendrix James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...

and

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

. He began performing in North East Scotland

folk club A folk club is a regular event, permanent venue, or section of a venue devoted to folk music and traditional music. Folk clubs were primarily an urban phenomenon of 1960s and 1970s Great Britain and Ireland, and vital to the second British folk r ...

Developed style

Moving to London in 1982, influenced by the works of

Robin Guthrie Robin Andrew Guthrie (born 4 January 1962) is a Scottish musician, songwriter, composer, record producer and audio engineer, best known as the co-founder of the alternative rock band Cocteau Twins. During his career Guthrie has performed ...

The Cocteau Twins Cocteau Twins was a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. They were formed in Grangemouth by Robin Guthrie (guitars, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass), adding Elizabeth Fraser (vocals) in 1981 and replacing Heggie with multi-instru ...

and

Tom Verlaine Tom Verlaine (born Thomas Miller, December 13, 1949) is an American singer, guitarist and songwriter, best known as the frontman of the New York City rock band Television. Biography Verlaine was born Thomas Miller in Denville, New Jersey and ...

Television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

, Clemo began recording his own work. He put together a short-lived

experimental music Experimental music is a general label for any music or music genre that pushes existing boundaries and genre definitions. Experimental compositional practice is defined broadly by exploratory sensibilities radically opposed to, and questioning of, ...

band Box in the Sun, but left to explore his solo projects. He developed a complex and multi-layered approach, creating music which always sounds fresh to the listener. He builds soundworlds from diverse sources including field recordings made in locations such as: the crowded streets of New Delhi; the dense insect soundscapes of the Malaysian

rainforest Rainforests are characterized by a closed and continuous tree canopy, moisture-dependent vegetation, the presence of epiphytes and lianas and the absence of wildfire. Rainforest can be classified as tropical rainforest or temperate rainfores ...

; Sydney building sites;

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

mud pool A mudpot, or mud pool, is a sort of acidic hot spring, or fumarole, with limited water. It usually takes the form of a pool of bubbling mud. The acid and microorganisms decompose surrounding rock into clay and mud. Description The mud of a mudp ...

s; and glass and metal workshops. In the studio Clemo builds complex and densely textured compositions, developing them through a process of composition and improvisation, with contributions from a diverse group of musicians. During the final stages he extensively reconfigures, interweaving instrumental, vocal and recorded material, disguising origin and cultural references. The result is a mix of musical genre, which crosses between

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, rock, contemporary classical and

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that started in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mostly used to r ...

, described as "finely crafted shimmering matrices of sound" and creating something which is "mesmeric and completely addictive".

Musical career

Sound – Inhale the Colours

Clemo's first two albums were collaborative works with violinist

Ysanne Spevack Ysanne Spevack (born 24 June 1972) is a British-American Jewish composer, conductor and arranger who plays violin, viola and cello, and assorted multi-instruments including mbira, keyboards and guitar. best known for her work recording and tour ...

, aka Mee. The pair shared the composition credits, but used Clemo's multi-layered approach to creation and composition. ''Sound – Inhale the Colours'' was created in 1996/7 largely in Sydney, Australia, featuring contributions from an additional eleven musicians. Well reviewed by critics on release, it remained a question for them as to whether it was

ambient electronica Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It ...

or World music.

Soundzero

A second collaborative album ''Soundzero'' was completed in 1999, but only released in March 2008.As stated in th
Chain D.L.K. review
/ref> Both albums featured, amongst others, Phil Slater on trumpet and Tarlochan (Bobby) Singh on

tabla A tabla, bn, তবলা, prs, طبلا, gu, તબલા, hi, तबला, kn, ತಬಲಾ, ml, തബല, mr, तबला, ne, तबला, or, ତବଲା, ps, طبله, pa, ਤਬਲਾ, ta, தபலா, te, తబల� ...

. On ''Soundzero'', Jazz singer

Cleveland Watkiss Cleveland Watkiss, (born 21 October 1959), is a British vocalist, actor, and composer. Biography Cleveland Watkiss was born in Hackney, East London, to Jamaican parents, and was one of nine children. He is the older brother of pianist Trevo ...

, often heavily processed, made a guest appearance; whilst the album was also the first appearance of a British

rhythm section A rhythm section is a group of musicians within a music ensemble or band that provides the underlying rhythm, harmony and pulse of the accompaniment, providing a rhythmic and harmonic reference and "beat" for the rest of the band. The rhythm sec ...

, consisting of: Mark Sanders (drums); John Edwards (double bass); and

Pete Lockett Pete Lockett is an English percussionist and recording artist. Lockett is known as a versatile and prolific percussionist, collaborating with many artists. He is well-versed in percussion traditions from music cultures around the world, from tradit ...

(percussion).

Ambiguous Dialogues

Clemo's third album ''Ambiguous Dialogues'', the first under his own name, was released in 2004 on Metier Jazz. Featuring 12 musicians, as well as the British rhythm section it involved contributions from

Clive Bell Arthur Clive Heward Bell (16 September 1881 – 17 September 1964) was an English art critic, associated with formalism and the Bloomsbury Group. He developed the art theory known as significant form. Biography Origins Bell was born in East ...

(reeds), and Tom Chant (soprano saxophone and

bass clarinet The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B (meaning it is a transposing instrument on which a written C sounds as B), but it plays notes an octave bel ...

). Clemo toured the work post the album's release, which was well reviewed and received. During the same year, he became a judge for the first time at the British Composer Awards for the

British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors The Ivors Academy (formerly the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors – BASCA) is one of the largest professional associations for music writers in Europe. The academy exists to support, protect, and campaign for the interests ...

, which he has since undertaken again in 2005, 2006, 2010 and 2011.

The Rooms

In October 2008, Clemo released his fourth album ''The Rooms''. A musical progression through different sound "rooms" or "spaces", it featured 22 musicians including: Clive Bell;

Theo Travis Theo Travis (born 7 July 1964 in Birmingham, England) is a British saxophonist, flautist and composer. He is best known for being a member of Soft Machine which he joined in 2006 while the group was still using the "Legacy" suffix and for being ...

(saxophone and

flute The flute is a family of classical music instrument in the woodwind group. Like all woodwinds, flutes are aerophones, meaning they make sound by vibrating a column of air. However, unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is a reedless ...

); Simon Hopkins (electric guitar); B.J Cole (pedal steel); Henry Lowther (trumpet and flugelhorn); and a

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

string quartet The term string quartet can refer to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two violinists ...

. Clemo credited legendary sound engineer Phill Brown, who has worked with

and

Bob Marley Robert Nesta Marley (6 February 1945 – 11 May 1981; baptised in 1980 as Berhane Selassie) was a Jamaican singer, musician, and songwriter. Considered one of the pioneers of reggae, his musical career was marked by fusing elements o ...

among others, for his invaluable contribution to the recording process of ''The Rooms''. The album was critically acclaimed, and reviewed as floating somewhere between

, rock and soundtrack, with critics describing it as intelligent "fourth world" electro-jazz.

Mesmer

Up to this point, one of Clemo's key instruments of choice to compose with was the guitar. But having become quite bored with what he was playing on it, he moved for his next album to the piano. For a year he created improvisations, charting a deeply personal journey through significant life experiences and environments. These were then given to pianis
Kevin Pollard
to interpret and expand, with Clemo then adding additional guitar pieces to shape the compositions. With the basic structure laid out, he then invited 14 additional musicians – one at a time – to "blindly" add their response on top, including: Oren Marshall (tuba);

B. J. Cole Brian John Cole is an English pedal steel guitarist, who has long been active as a session and solo musician. Coming to prominence in the early 1970s with the band Cochise, Cole has played in many styles, ranging from mainstream pop and rock to ...

(pedal steel guitar); Byron Wallen (trumpet and flugelhorn); Emily Burridge (cello); with

Thomas Bloch Thomas Bloch (born 1962 in Colmar, France) is a classical musician specializing in the rare instruments ondes Martenot, glass harmonica, and Cristal Baschet. Receiving a First Prize for ondes Martenot at the Paris Conservatoire National Sup� ...

(

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass) ...

Damon Albarn Damon Albarn (; born 23 March 1968) is an English-Icelandic musician, singer-songwriter and composer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-creator and primary musical contributor of the virtual ...

) contributing ethereal tones on three instruments (glass harmonica, crystal baschet and ondes martenot). Clemo then heavily edited and shaped their contributions. The album was the first on which Clemo added his own voice, using multi-layering to create harmonies. He finally added additional recorded sounds from places which have great significance to him, including: the river and woods at the end of his childhood garden; his first school;

Aberdeen railway station , symbol_location = gb , symbol = rail , image = Aberdeen station 01, August 2013.JPG , caption = Concourse at Aberdeen station (2013) , borough = Aberdeen, City of Aberdeen , country = Scotland , coordinates = , grid_name = Grid refe ...

;

Redwood National Park The Redwood National and State Parks (RNSP) are a complex of one national park and three state parks, cooperatively managed, located in the United States along the coast of northern California. Comprising Redwood National Park (established 1968 ...

in northern California; and Plum Village

Zen Buddhist Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

monastery in France. As with ''The Rooms'', most of the sessions were recorded by Phill Brown, who Clemo sees as crucial in both building powerful creative environments, and capturing a high level of sonic detail in the sessions. The end result, ''Mesmer'', was well reviewed by both the music and mainstream press, described as a form of contemporary

chamber music Chamber music is a form of classical music that is composed for a small group of instruments—traditionally a group that could fit in a palace chamber or a large room. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small numb ...

with "improvisation, multi-level musical dialogue and sound design at its core."

Dream Maps

With contributions from 21 musicians including

Arve Henriksen Arve Henriksen (born 22 March 1968) is a Norwegian trumpeter. Career Henriksen was born in Stranda and educated on the Jazz program at Trondheim Musikkonservatorium; he later studied music pedagogy, while he played in «Bodega Band» (1987� ...

(trumpet), Evi Vine (voice), Byron Wallen (trumpet, flugelhorn), Oren Marshall (tuba),

(glass harmonica, Ondes Martenot), Emily Burridge and Peter Gregson (cellos), Dream Maps was released on 9 September 2016 with a live launch with an 8-piece band including Arve Henriksen and Evi Vine at

Kings Place Kings Place is a building in London’s Kings Cross area, providing music and visual arts venues combined with seven floors of office space. It has housed the editorial offices of ''The Guardian'' newspaper since December 2008 and is the for ...

, London, UK on 14 September. The concert was described by Richard Williams o
thebluemoment.com
as "Artfully mixed together with recordings of heartbeats and water by the sound engineer

Phill Brown Phill Brown (born 1950) is an audio engineer who has worked with a number of well-known musicians, including: Traffic, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Cat Stevens, Bob Marley and Talk Talk. He is also the younger brother of Terry Brown. Career Brown ...

, the music washed gently but insistently over the clearly beguiled near-capacity crowd in Kings Place’s Hall 2... this was Clemo’s first live gig in 10 years; its success should encourage him." Dream Maps was well received by the media with Selwyn Harris in

Jazzwise ''Jazzwise'', launched in 1997, is the UK jazz monthly magazine. ''Jazzwise'' has a broad sub-genre coverage, from jazz, improv, hard bop, and jazz-rock to bebop and classic jazz, and also covers jazz crossover, including jazz-funk, jazz hip-h ...

describing it as "Meditative, trance-like stillness… symphonic ambience… echoes of… Brian Eno and David Sylvian. Miles’ Sketches of Spain reimagined by Jon Hassell." Grant Moon in

Prog (magazine) ''Prog'' is a British magazine and website dedicated to progressive rock music. The magazine is published 11 times a year by Future. It was launched in February 2009 and is based in London, publishing its 100th issue in August 2019. ''Prog'' ...

said that “Philip Clemo gets close to the edges on his extraordinary sixth album… utterly transfixing” and George Farbey in

All About Jazz ''All About Jazz'' is a website established by Michael Ricci in 1995. A volunteer staff publishes news, album reviews, articles, videos, and listings of concerts and other events having to do with jazz. Ricci maintains a related site, ''Jazz Near ...

said “Mesmerising… irresistible and idiosyncratic. Within a jazz context, could even be regarded as a new kind of third stream” **** Philip Clemo discussed the making of Dream Maps on the

BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...

programm
Jazz Now
on 24 October 2016.

Film-making

Having started out professionally as a production film editor, including working on the BBC's ''

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

'', since 1989 Clemo has made a series of

short films A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

which have been shown at festivals around the world. One of his early films was ''From The Morning On'', a

travelogue Travelogue may refer to: Genres * Travel literature, a record of the experiences of an author travelling * Travel documentary A travel documentary is a documentary film, television program, or online series that describes travel in general or t ...

based on a day in the Indian sub-continent. He has since travelled extensively throughout South East Asia and Australasia, with both film camera and sound recording equipment. Having used video projections of his film work extensively in his live musical performances, he filmed his first major project, ''The Air Holds Still on My Breath'' in

in summer 2008. Shown at Cannes Short Film Corner in 2009, the film, a series of abstract "mood paintings" mapping the "

Seven Ages of Man "All the world's a stage" is the phrase that begins a monologue from William Shakespeare's pastoral comedy ''As You Like It'', spoken by the melancholy Jaques in Act II Scene VII Line 139. The speech compares the world to a stage and life to a ...

", features music from ''The Rooms''. It was shot using specialist camera technology to capture extreme slow motion details of geothermal activity and waterfalls, and from the air using a gyro-stabilised camera mounted on a

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

. Shot using the same technical combination as ''The Air'', Clemo made the short film ''Melt'', which was shown at 2009 Reykjavik International Film Festival 2009 and 2010 London Short Film Festival. In late 2013, Clemo developed ''The Breath Project'', encompassing film and art installation, produced by perfectmotion and Animal Monday. ''Breath'' illustrates the dramas of human life through the metaphor of landscape, from isolation and turmoil to exhilaration and transformation. Moving through the seven phases of human life, through ageing human forms and across different terrains of the human body, we see comparisons with the environments of planet Earth. Clemo has presented TEDX and TED talks about his work on Breath. He is currently working with Dr Thomas Moors and the charity Shout at Cancer on 'From Silence Into Song' which honours the legacy of the survivor trees of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, hooking them up to sensors exactly 75 years after the bombs were dropped, and an extraordinary choir of cancer survivors who have learnt how to sing after the removal of their voiceboxes.

Live performance

Since 2016, Clemo has been performing with his Dream Maps Live band, working with a diverse group of musicians including

(trumpet), Byron Wallen (trumpet, flugelhron),

(pedal steel), Evi Vine (voice), Simon Edwards (bass),

Martyn Barker Martyn Barker (born 14 September 1959, Merseyside, England) is an English drummer, percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, best known as the drummer for Shriekback. He has also been a member of King Swamp, and worked with Rob ...

(drums, percussion), Emily Burridge (cello) and Steven Hill (guitar & keys).

Discography

* ''Sound – Inhale the Colours'', 1997, with Mee (

) * ''soundzero'', 1999 (but only released in 2008), with

* ''Ambiguous Dialogues'', 2004 * ''The Rooms'', 2008 * ''Mesmer'', 2012 * ''Dream Maps'', 2016

Filmography

* ''Box in the Sun'', 1990 * ''From the Morning On'', 1990 * ''Objects and Observations'', 1993 * ''Thieves – Unworthy promo'', 1994 * ''An Altered Perspective (Journeys in the East)'', 1995 * ''Metal on Water'', 1999 * ''Separated by Shadows (shown during 2005/6 UK tour)'', 2005 * ''The Air Holds Still on My Breath (Iceland Journey)'', 2009 * ''Melt'', 2009 * ''Sigur Rós – Fjögur Píanó'', 2012 * ''The Mesmer vignettes'', 2012 * ''Return'', 2013 * ''Wide-eyed'', 2013 * ''Orchid'', 2013 * ''The Memory of Objects: Château de Rochebonne, France'', 2014 * ''Water in the Flow (with Evi Vine)'', 2016 * ''Shadow Seas (with Evi Vine)'', 2017 * ''Breath (Journeys Through the Landscapes of Life)'', 2018 * ''Lark'', 2018 * ''Evi Vine: My Only Son'', 2019 * ''Hayley Ross: Dernier Baiser'', 2019 * ''Magnetic (with Arve Henriksen & Evi Vine)'', 2021

References

External links

Official Website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Clemo, Philip 1964 births Living people People from Aberdeenshire British experimental filmmakers British composers Scottish composers British record producers British experimental musicians British sound artists British installation artists British video artists British filmmakers Scottish contemporary artists