Feature

Clock Opera- Belongings [Video]

May 18, 2011

Clock Opera make extraordinarily accessible electronic pop music. They may draw from such esoteric sources as the systems music of Steve Reich and Philip Glass and have played their second ever gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall backing the Ballet Rambert, but you don’t need any special qualifications to enjoy what they do – just an appreciation of idiosyncratic electronic and organic sounds.

Guy Connelly, the vocalist, guitarist, sampler and master machinist behind Clock Opera can be placed in that small but select pantheon of distinguished male pop vocalists that also includes Billy Mackenzie of Associates, Haydon Thorpe of Wild Beasts and Antony Hegarty of Antony and The Johnsons, all singers unafraid of expressing themselves in an unguarded, emotional way.

Andy West (bass, guitar, synths), Che Albrighton (drums, samples) and Dan Armstrong (samples, synths, keyboards, backing vocals) join Guy on stage and make guitars sound like harp glissandos and keep the pace with his constantly evolving ideas and methods of chopping up sounds into smithereens and fiddling with them sonically and in terms of pitch and rhythm.

Together, Clock Opera are a studio unit who push the recording process to the limit, but who are also a fully functioning performing band able to reproduce the intricacies of their music while gaining a new urgency and energy with every show.

The above beautiful video was directed by Andy West having spent quite a while working on it.