Latest Release
- JUL 28, 2023
- 19 Songs
- Suburban Light (Remastered) · 2000
- Alone and Unreal: The Best of the Clientele (Deluxe Version) · 2000
- Strange Geometry · 2005
- I Am Not There Anymore · 2023
- Suburban Light (Remastered) · 2000
- Suburban Light (Remastered) · 2000
- A Fading Summer - EP · 2000
- Suburban Light (Remastered) · 2000
- Strange Geometry · 2005
- Music for the Age of Miracles · 2017
Essential Albums
- The U.K.’s Clientele specialize in a somber melancholia that immediately conjures up the feeling of an afternoon tea observing an English rain. The band’s obvious key ‘60s influences — Left Banke, Marianne Faithfull, Beatles, Kinks — are set back and relaxed to loping rhythms that never feel the need to modernize or speed up to today’s technology. Instead, singer Alasdair MacLean recounts his aimless wanderings — the ever-present rain — with seductive melodies that have the same breezy feeling as the images that go fleeting past. Much like Trembling Blue Stars’ Robert Wratten, MacLean is a lovelorn slacker who uses music to create the romance that always seems to be slipping through his fingers. His group’s third album is higher-fi than the debut (Suburban Light) and less monochromatic than the follow-up (The Violet Hour). The addition of strings to the band’s mix of jangly guitars, pianos, and organs adds a soothing touch, as the austere beauty of “I Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” bears out.
- This remaster of The Clientele’s debut album, Suburban Light, features the original European track listing, with bonus material that includes covers, rehearsals, b-sides, and three previously unreleased songs. The original 2000 album consists of early singles recorded for a variety of indie labels. The initial idea for Suburban Light had been to rerecord some of those singles, along with others that had been demoed. But when the band attempted to work in high-end studios, they found the warmth they desired to be severely lacking, so they stuck with the lower-fi original recordings. The result was one of 2000's finest albums. This rerelease adds even more goodness, with songs such as “Porcelain” and “Monday’s Rain” presented in their "Portastudio" (home eight-track) versions and “Mary Has Brought a Change in You” being issued for the first time. Anyone who loves the sounds of Belle & Sebastian, The Apartments, Robyn Hitchcock, Trembling Blue Stars, and other somber Anglo-pop writers will feel right at home with this brilliant debut album, now expanded.
Albums
- 2020
Music Videos
- 2007
Artist Playlists
- Reverb-heavy UK indie pop with an affinity for the ‘60s.
- Spectral lyricism and psych-pop guitars spanning myriad genres.
- The ethereal side of the psych-pop stalwarts.
Singles & EPs
- 2004
About The Clientele
As masters of wry, melancholy indie pop, The Clientele are as important as Belle and Sebastian for establishing a wider following for a kind of music that had previously struggled to make it across the Atlantic in the days of jangly ‘80s inspirations like The Smiths, The Go-Betweens, and Felt. Indeed, the English band—originally founded in London in 1991 by the group’s core of singer/guitarist Alasdair MacLean and bassist James Hornsey—found a warmer reception in the U.S. than they did at home for releases like the 2000 early-singles compilation Suburban Light and 2007’s God Save the Clientele, which they recorded in Nashville with Wilco’s Pat Sansone and Lambchop producer Mark Nevers. After MacLean put the band on hiatus in 2011 to make time for two albums by his side band, Amor de Días—a collaboration with Lupe Núñez-Fernández of the Spanish group Pipas—The Clientele returned with all their charm and sophistication intact with 2017’s Music for the Age of Miracles.
- ORIGIN
- London, England
- FORMED
- 1997
- GENRE
- Alternative