Benjamin Clementine

Benjamin Clementine
Benjamin Clementine in Monmartre, Paris 2014
Born	Benjamin Sainte-Clementine (1988-12-07) 7 December 1988 Crystal Palace, London, England
Occupation	Poet, singer, songwriter, pianist, composer, musician
Home town	Edmonton, London, Greater London, England
Musical career
Origin	Montmartre, Paris, France
Genres	Minimal, rock opera, expressionist, chamber pop, classical, folk, spoken word
Instruments	Vocals, piano, keyboard, bass, drums, percussion
Years active	2008–present
Labels	Virgin EMI, Barclay
Notable instruments
Steingraeber & Söhne E-272 Steinway D-274 Yamaha C7
Signature

Benjamin Sainte-Clementine (English pronunciation: /ˈbɛndʒəmɪn ˈsən ˈkləməntɪn/; born 7 December 1988)^[1] is a musician, poet and pianist from England.^[2] He grew up in North London before moving to France and subsequently performed on the British television programme Later With Jools Holland.^[3] He has been particularly praised for his unique piano playing, charisma on stage and his powerful vocals which is mostly compared to that of Nina Simone and Antony Hegarty^[4][5] He is noticeably seen playing on stage entirely in black or dark grey long trench-like woollen coat with no shirt underneath, in bare feet.^[6][7]

Early life

Clementine was born in Crystal Palace, London,^[7] but grew up in Edmonton, in the north of the city. He is the last of 5 children. He grew up with his grandmother and after she passed away, moved in with his parents.^[8][9] Having suffered bullying at school, Clementine was mischievous as a child but his rebellion was rarely conventional. He would bunk off school but spend all day at the library, picking books at random off the shelves. He found himself particularly drawn to the literature of the bible as well as poetry, especially William Blake, TS Eliot and Carol Ann Duffy. His older brother Joseph told him to read the dictionary, and Clementine sought out rare and archaic words, attempting to incorporate them into his vocabulary. ^{[10] [11]} He has cited his musical influences as Erik Satie, Jake Thackray, Antony Hegarty, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, Jimi Hendrix, Léo Ferré and Luciano Pavarotti.^[12]

Revelations in Paris

In 2008, at the age of 19, after unsuccessfully completing his bachelor's degree in Law,^[10] he had a brief conflict with his long time flatmate and friend,^[13] and, looking for somewhere else to live, decided to move to Paris, France,^[2] where he spent a number of years homeless and busking mostly playing in bars and hotels to earn a living.^[14] Once he started making money from busking he moved into a hostel in Montmartre, where he lived for three years. He started writing in Paris and quickly realised, from the poets he admired, that they were pointless if they didn't say something about his particular experiences.^[11] He was discovered by an agent who introduced him to his friend, later on becoming Clementine's manager for a period of time. In 2012, whilst playing a gig at the Festival de Cannes they met Lionel Bensemoun, a business mogul in France. Through him, they decided to set up the record label Behind so that Clementine could record his music.^[14][15] He eventually became popular on the music scene, where he was described as "la révélation anglaise des Francos" ("the English revelation of the "Francofolies" festival").^[2] Clementine eventually signed a joint music license contract between Virgin EMI,UK and Barclay, France.

Early works

Cornerstone EP, Glorious You EP

Clementine's first EP, Cornerstone, was released in June 2013 with three studio tracks.^[7] It was re-issued in October 2013 with three additional acoustic tracks recorded for Deezer, a web-based music streaming service.^[15] In the same month, on an episode of the BBC television show Later With Jools Holland that also included performances by Paul McCartney, Earth, Wind and Fire, Gary Clark, Jr. and the Arctic Monkeys,^[16] he performed the EP’s title track.^[14][17] The appearance drew strong critical praise, with Paul McCartney encouraging Clementine to continue his musical career.^[2] The London Evening Standard′s David Smyth, reviewing a gig at the South Bank Centre, said that Clementine's performance reminded him of Nina Simone, particularly as he had covered her hit "Ain't Got No, I Got Life" in a radically different style.^[18]

Clementine announced further tours, both solo and supporting Cat Power at the Brighton Dome, including an appearance at the O2 Academy in Brixton^[19] and at the Rencontres Trans Musicales festival in Rennes, France, where he worked on a special show and performed four nights.^[17]

Andy Gill on the Independence album review wrote;

"This debut EP offers a taste of one of 2014’s most promising new talents. With just Benjamin Clementine’s impulsive piano figures accompanying his dark, powerful voice, there’s a soulful solemnity about these searching songs. But there’s also a wealth of imagination at work: “It’s a wonderful life, traversed in tears from the heavens,” he observes in “I Won’t Complain”, surveying the emotional turmoil that renders his heart a “melodrama in fact”; while over flurries of piano, his urgent delivery of “Cornerstone” blends the sensitivity of Antony Hegarty with the wracked passion of Nina Simone, admitting loneliness as his “home, home, home”, but biting off the word to sound like “hope”. A distinctive and impressive new voice."^[4]

Studio Albums

At least for now

His first studio album At Least for Now was mainly released across Europe on January 12th, 2015.^[10] On the 13 of February 2015, Clementine was given an award from the Victoires de la Musique, a French award ceremony equivalent to that of the grammy award, as the best new artist.^[20]

Music style

Voice

Clementine is a spinto tenor.^[21] A warm graceful voice with a bright, full timbre that is strong but yet heavy that ranges from approximately the C one octave below middle C (C3) to the D one octave above middle C (D5). His lower range extends two octaves below middle C (C3).^[22]

"The 24 year old marries the intimacy of Antony Hegarty with the passion of Aretha Franklin and the intensity of Edith Piaf, delivering his introspective lyrics about integrity and vulnerability with an almost operative soul sensibility that recalls Nina Simone."^[21]

Expressionism and Minimal

Clementine is entirely self-taught musically. Growing up, Clementine had little exposure to music and it was this naivety that now made his singing so confusing to classify. In his teens he had caught Anthony Hegarty performing Hope There's Someone on television; then on the radio he'd heard the avant-garde French composer Erik Satie. Unconsciously, he had married the spirit of these two influences with poetic lyrics to produce his own material, both original and epic. He accompanies on hypnotic piano vamps ^[21] with mostly minimal instruments ranging from little voice breaths, a brushing of coat for percussions as in his song Edmonton, to a vicious string stride confrontation in his song Adios.^[23]

He said;

^[24]

Poetry

Clementine claims to have been mainly influenced by writers such as William Blake, Carol Ann Duffy and C. S. Lewis^[23] He delivers his introspective lyrics about integrity and vulnerability and explores both in everyday experience. One of his frustrations returning to Britain was how little ambition there was in most song lyrics. Having had a spell in France, he realised that most of their artists put a lot of detail into their lyrics. Talking to the Guardian journalist Tim Lewis, he said, "it's very important down there (France) because most of the time they [the audience] pay more attention to what the singer says and what they are trying to express."^[23]

He exposes this by writing:

Appearances

On 17 June 2014 Clementine performed three songs live throughout the Burberry Prorsum Menswear Catwalk show^[25][26] - the first musician to perform live throughout a Burberry show. An album was scheduled to be released in 2014,^[15] but Clementine announced that he will be releasing his second EP called Glorious You, on 25 August 2014.^[1]

On 17 July 2014, Clementine performed at the Montreux Jazz Festival.^[7][27]

On 5 October 2014, Clementine performed at TedXSalford 2014 in Salford, one of the largest independently organised TedX events in the UK.

On Sunday the 12 of October 2014, Clementine performed and spoke at the Observer Ideas at the Barbican Centre, a festival to share ideas to the public, in a line up that included Edward Snowden, David Simon, creator of the acclaimed HBO series The Wire and multi-award winning musician Tinie Tempah^[28]

On Monday the 15th of December 2014, Clementine performed at AssagoForum in Milan, opening the concert of Stromae.

On Saturday the 21st of February 2015, Clementine performed live at Polish radio station Polskie Radio Program III.

On Tuesday the 28th of April 2015, Clementine performed at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in New York City.

Discography

Albums

Album	Album	Peak positions							Certification
		UK	BEL (Vl) [29]	BEL (Wa) [30]	FR [31]	ITA [32]	NED [33]	SWI [34]
At Least for Now	Year released: 12 January 2015[35] Record label: Behind Records / Barclay		24	14	11	37	13	22

EPs

EP	EP details	Peak positions
		UK	FR [31]
Cornerstone EP	Year released: 2013 Record label: Behind Records, (BE001, 2013) Details: 12″ vinylLimited edition. Includes 3 tracks/ CD, 2013. Re-issue, includes 6 tracks, including 3 from his Deezer session		–
Glorious You EP	Year released: 2014 Record label: Behind Records, (BE002, 2014) Details: 12″ vinyl, Limited edition. Includes 4 tracks/ CD, 2014. Reissue includes 4 tracks, Condolence, Adios, Edmonton, Mathematics		45

Singles

Year	Song	Peak positions	Album / EP
		FR [31]
2013	"Cornerstone"	93	Cornerstone EP
	"London"	115
	"I Won't Complain"	118
2015	"Condolence"	193	At Least For Now
	"Nemesis"	145

Television appearances

Year	Television show	Performing	Description
2013	Later... with Jools Holland	"Cornerstone" & "Nemesis"	Series 43, Episode 6[36]
	Ce soir (ou jamais!)	"I won't complain"	Ce soir (ou jamais!) 2013[37]
2014	Ce soir (ou jamais!)	"Nemesis"	Ce soir (ou jamais!) 2014[38]

C a vous 21 Janvier 2015 Cornerstone

Le Grand journal Janvier 2015 Nemesis

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Benjamin Clementine.

• Benjamin Clementine discography at Discogs
• Benjamin Clementine on Facebook
• Benjamin Clementine - Cornerstone - Later... with Jools Holland - BBC Two HD on YouTube
• Benjamin Clementine - Live Deezer Session (Cornerstone) on YouTube