Clarice Jensen – "In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness"
Cello rising from silence
There is music with the power to transport you instantly into another world—and Clarice Jensen's new album, "In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness", is most certainly among it. Even the title (inspired by a line from Rilke) feels like a promise: something emerging from the darkness, radiant, dressed in festive attire. And that is precisely how it's supposed to be, when you allow yourself to be drawn into Jensen's soundscapes.
Clarice's way of composing is utterly fascinating, and her art has something magical about it. She takes her cello, improvises, layers loops upon one another, and weaves them together with subtle touches of electronic effects. In doing so, she creates sonic landscapes that pulse and glow without ever becoming overloaded. I find myself completely under her spell, unable to break free. On her fourth solo album, "In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness", she goes a step further still, placing the warm, unmistakable voice of the cello once again at the very heart of it all. Barely altered, accompanied only by delicate effects such as delay or tremolo, it sounds as if the instrument were speaking directly to us.
An immersive journey of solitude, soundscapes, and the return to acoustic roots
The depth of these six pieces may also be related to the place where they were created. In 2020, Jensen left Brooklyn for the quiet of the Berkshire Mountains. Instead of constant collaboration and the bustle of concerts, she found calm, solitude, and the freedom to rediscover her own sound. While her previous album Esthesis still carried a more synthetic, urban quality, everything here feels far more open and multidimensional, almost like a conversation with one's own being—one that, for a magical moment, also invites us outsiders to listen in.
Her closeness to Bach is palpable on In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness. His Cello Suites, unfolding an entire universe of voices from a single instrument, clearly served as inspiration. Yet Jensen has carried this tradition forward in her own way, carefully–almost reverently–weaving in the possibilities of electronics and effects.
You can sense Clarice's love for Bach's music
What I find especially striking is how much the album also reflects on the idea of "being solo" itself—both as an artist and as a human being. Jensen describes the Rilke quote she chose as an image of the creative process: ideas born in darkness that then step forward "in holiday clothing." And that is precisely what the music conveys—the emergence of something beautiful, clear, almost hallucinatory, from silence.
She recorded it all at Studio Richter Mahr in Oxfordshire, a place that already seems to breathe artistic inspiration. The result is an album you don't simply listen to – you experience it. If you give yourself over to it, these cello drones and looping textures will wrap around you—and perhaps leave you returning just a little brighter from the darkness.
On Bandcamp, you can already hear the first two advance tracks, From A to B (Track 2) and Unity (Track 6). The whole album, "In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness", will be released on 17 October 2025.
