Jay Clarkson at Last FM

Jay Clarkson
"Lovescarf" (mp3)
from "Over the Mountain"
(Arch Hill Records)

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Arch Hill Recordings is very pleased to announce a new addition to the family and catalogue –
“Over the Mountain”, the new album from treasured Dunedin/Christchurch gem Jay Clarkson.

The release of “Over the Mountain” is a rare and special event. It marks collaboration from two of New Zealand's finest musicians, Jay Clarkson and Johannes Contag (Cloudboy, Mink), who have quietly been producing some of New Zealand's finest musical work.

Although it has been seven years since the last Jay Clarkson release, those familiar with New Zealand music history will know her name well and anticipate her newest release.

Clarkson was a founding member of ‘80s underground punk collective The Playthings, who released 2 singles and an album (engineered by later Bats bassist Paul Kean). Following these, Clarkson produced a series of releases with They Were Expendable, a solo album, and a compilation featuring all (bar Playthings) of these acts called “Packet”. Most of Clarkson's output was
released by Flying Nun Records.

In 1989 another Jay Clarkson incarnation, Breathing Cage, won $44,000 for the Rheineck Rock Award, helping to produce the excellent album “Misericord”. In 2001 Clarkson released a solo 4-track album of intimate and nicely edgy songs titled “Kindle” through the Dunedin label Arclife. This was in part mixed by Johannes Contag and marks the start of the two artists' collaboration.

"Over the Mountain" started its life in 2004 as a series of demos recorded round the corner from Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, when Clarkson visited Contag, who had relocated to Germany with Cloudboy the year before.
These initial recordings progressed to the Austrian Alps, where for a week Clarkson and Contag set up a studio in an expansive attic - overlooking a deep and green valley bearing cows with clunking bells, snow-topped mountain peaks in full view. Here they recorded the main part of "Over the Mountain".

Aspects of the album were then tidied long distance with Contag still residing in Berlin and Clarkson back in Dunedin.

In 2006, Contag returned to Wellington, where he currently lives. The final songs added to the album ("Loretta", "Lovescarf", "Groundless", "Uncooked" and "In Addition") Johannes and Jay recorded together in and around Wellington. Contag completed mixing in mid-2007.

The finished album captures a similar atmosphere to "Kindle", but with a perhaps less 'secretive' feel. Contag's instrumental contributions and arrangements well match Clarkson’s vivid and imaginative song writing.
Many of the songs are character-based narratives, such as “Mad Mary”, which Clarkson details as follows:

“Several years ago if you walked down York Place you’d go past this pale-with-age derelict two storied wooden house. Moth eaten, filthy curtains, half-opened and never ever altered. The lights were never on. Twice I fluked seeing the ramshackle elderly occupant with long grey hair, shuffling out to the letterbox. Then one day I was at Roy and Christine Colbert’s place [former owners of Dunedin’s legendary “Records Records” store and looking out the lounge window I realised I was seeing the back of the derelict house on York Place! 'That’s Mad Mary's', Roy informed me. Enough for the imagination to go to work!”

Clarkson's current live band includes Contag on guitar and keyboards, David Hall (Idle Suite, Slim Chants) on bass, and Justin Barr (Raskolnikovs, The Users) on drums. On the upcoming album release tour, they will complemented by some of the guest musicians that appear on the album - Jeff Henderson (clarinet) and Rosie Langabeer (accordion) in Wellington, and John White (violin) and Isaac Smith (double bass) in Christchurch.