Australian Artist Imogen Clark Releases Debut Album 'The Art of Getting Through'
The production of the album began in May 2023.
By: Josh Sharpe May. 31, 2024
AIR award-nominated singer-songwriter Imogen Clark has released her new album The Art Of Getting Through. Recorded across the iconic studios of Abbey Road in London, Peter Frampton’s Studio Phenix in Nashville and East West in Los Angeles, the album not only took Imogen on a musical pilgrimage, but also took her to the depths of her songwriting, the album unfolding like a chapter in a deeply personal diary.
“These songs are about the messiness of life, the layers of injury and hurt that build resilience and how you never really get a clean slate or a fresh start. There is no starting over, there is only getting through”.
The production of the album began in May 2023, kicking off a marathon year crescendoing today with the LP’s release. October 2023 saw the release of ‘If I Want In’, a fiery mission statement about breaking away from society’s expectations. Recorded in Abbey Road backed by members of Gang of Youths and featuring Camp Cope’s Georgia Maq on backing vocals, the track debut to rave reviews, with Beats Per Minute calling it “textbook-perfect” and containing their “favorite line of 2023: “Everyone I know is either married or in rehab, I couldn’t say which one is worse.”
2024 has seen a cascade of touring accompanied by tantalizing tastes of the album, kicking off with the cathartic ode to pettiness ‘All Hard Feelings’ (powered by Elvis Costello’s rhythm section), love anthem ‘Big One’ and the defiant ‘The Noise’ (both featuring Dawes drummer Griffin Goldsmith), the latter accompanied by a gender-flipped homage to the iconic video for her idol Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancing in the Dark’.
Elsewhere on the album, Imogen gives the counsel to her teenage self as she battles an eating disorder (‘Silhouette’), sings with bitter irony over screaming guitars over the justified paranoia informing women’s interactions with men (‘Natural Predator’), aches to be understood by a lover like she is by her friends (‘Like A Man’), lusts after a taken man (‘Sebastian’), rocks out the remains of a situationship (‘Stopover’) and confronts the darkest moment of her life in the confessional piano ballad ‘The Last of Me’.
“It was the lowest point of the pandemic, the culmination of a harrowing descent of my already precarious mental health situation to the edge of a cliff. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to exist anymore and I began to understand how a friend of mine had gotten to the point of taking that exit route.”
Rounding out the album is the inspiring title track, currently climbing the AAA Top 100 in the US, and the stunning closing song ‘If Your Heart Never Breaks’. Written with Grammy-winning songwriting icon Jim Lauderdale, the song is accompanied by a stunning string arrangement by Bright Eyes’ Nate Walcott.
Imogen stands as a testament to the power of transcending one's familiar boundaries, a journey fueled by her roots and an unwavering ambition that has taken her from the teenager who honed her chops playing Western Sydney bars to global stages from the US to Europe. As she establishes herself into a vibrant new city and releases The Art Of Getting Through into the world, this is truly only just the beginning.
U.S. TOUR DATES W/ ROBYN HITCHCOCK
Wednesday 23 October - Thunderbird Music Hall, Pittsburgh PA
Thursday 24 October - City Winery, Philadelphia PA
Friday 25 October - The Atlantis, Washington DC
Saturday 26 October - Outpost in the Burbs, Montclair NJ
Tuesday 29 October - City Winery, Boston MA
Wednesday 30 October - City Winery Pier 57, New York NY
Thursday 1 November - Levon Helm Studios, Woodstock NY
Friday 2 November - Stage One, Fairfield CT
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