CLARA JOY

from folders containing hundreds of scribbled notes there lies within the endless writings the internal workings of a city kid. exhumed, ordered, and delicately stitched together, the consolidated thoughts of a life become the foundation of ‘what we have now’. the debut album by new york musician, performance artist and event organiser who has channelled her collective strengths into a beautiful and questioning body of work that is a summary of sentiment and statement of intent.

Thank you for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly, congratulations on the new record. A beautiful album and one that has a lot to say. Your views on society, the city spaces you occupy, mental health, and consumerism all feature throughout. Is there an overarching message or theme to What We Have Now?

Thank you so much! I’d say the title speaks for itself… I was trying to reflect the times, what I was experiencing and what I could feel the rest of the world was experiencing as best I could at that time. Of course, it’s only one perspective. A big theme was highlighting realities around us that we are generally convinced to ignore.

In your opener ‘A Break From The Breakdown’, you reflect upon youthful vigour and the determined inner focus that comes from exuberant passion and certainty. A feeling that now in hindsight, is tempered by reality and disaffection, yet your hope is to experience it again someday. Is that (without oversimplifying it) the true essence of your work in so much that your creative drive started with a blazing fire - and that still flickers within - but the realization of time, its endless march forward, and a dissipating purity of those original ideals, makes reattaining that feeling ever harder?

The point was not to make people feel like I am hopeless, but more address reality. These songs were mostly written during Covid and that one especially was written in quarantine.

Reality can change and my way of processing that in my life was to highlight the parts of life that I felt were being smooth over by the technocracy and capitalism.

There is a strong sense of symbolism in your work and both your film clips ‘You Just Liked My Item’ and ‘Find Things Beautiful’ echo that point – be it the voyeuristic nature of technology, or an idealised life free from dirt and dilemma - is it a sense of disparity that stands out to you or perhaps the notion of something, which connects your sound to sight?

Being a performer and making music videos etc is voyeuristic in itself- actually in 2025 it can feel like everything is voyeuristic. The song you just liked my item is about neoliberalism, algorithms, and was inspired by an app called Depop, where they give you a daily algorithm of clothes that you would like. I wouldn’t consider whatever clothes that show up on there to be a real reflection of me, but of the apps interpretation of what I’m tapping on. The song has an antisocial personality to it and I think this stuff does create an antisocial society. The ‘Find Things Beautiful’ music video used a vacuum to intervene the social and physical architecture of Dimes Sq and the Brooklyn Bridge. I did this as a performance piece. Both the Brooklyn Bridge and Dimes Square are examples of a kind of tourism. One is very old (bridge) and one is very new (Dimes). There are plenty of other differences and similarities between the two.

In a similar vein, the imagery you conjure lyrically is so skilful. Is it a conceptualised approach you take toward songwriting and canvasing ideas?

These songs took so long to make and produce. With this album, it would take me sometimes a few months to really get a song perfect. I just wrote literally so many drafts before accepting a song as done.

I used to start my songs with a truth statement at the top, defining the overarching message of what I wanted to write about. This album was more about taking chances poetically and textually as I’m very inspired by artist who do that.

Basically, I was sort of studying while making these songs: the idea of intervening a song with things that are not necessarily supposed to be in songs or writing lyrics in a way that is using the concept of “Songs” for my ideas or seeing a song as an object. Sometimes seeing a song as an object helps provide the freedom to take more risks, musically, and lyrically and sound wise.

Not all of the songs were done this way: I also just write a lot of songs because I love to write songs, sing, and release emotions through voice and music. But it is always cool to be able to do something unexpected or take a risk with myself as an artist.

When you say on ‘Don’t Wanna Go Home’, “Don’t stop me from dancing, I don’t want to go home and be forced to slip my secrets under strangers’ doors”, can you share with us one of those secrets?

Well, that song was pointing to a very sad time in my life in which I was battling a lot of manic depression, relationship issues and an unstable home life. Being from New York City I live with my parents still. The song is about meeting my best friend Carlo, also known as the prolific musician K. Porcelain, for beer at this spot between his job and my house. He also lives at home with his parents. Both being city kids, I was reflecting on wanting to escape my home life, and how he understood that feeling as a city kid himself , and how much joy and understanding I had with him when we would meet at this spot between us, that I just didn’t want to go home. I just wanted to drink Guinness and laugh forever with him lol. Basically the song is about seeking refuge as a native New Yorker and also: hanging out with Carlo being a refuge for me. By the way, I love my family -but you know, things are not always easy.

Your vocal style is a wonderful mix of poetic narrative. Is this something you consciously strive for as a part of your signature sound or an inadvertent approach that simply best captures the sentiment you are trying to express?

I do a lot of different exercises with my voice when recording and I’m still working on developing this. I am very inspired by people who work with their voice in interesting ways such as Shelley Hirsch, who is probably my favorite artist. I do happen to have a sort of easily identifiable voice, I guess, but when I do record my songs, I will take on characters or situations in order to communicate certain feelings.

For a certain kind of song, before singing a line into a microphone in a recording, I will think in my head something like: “the line I’m about to sing into the mic is going to be performed as me confessing a secret to my friend Su.” It can help.

Musically, the refined pairing of acoustic and keys work so wonderfully in crystallizing the emotive states you are conveying. What is it that you seek and try and coax out of your instrumentation to articulate the intangible into solid sonic states?

Well, it’s kind of simple actually: I basically just find chords that emote what I’m trying to say lyrically and I try to put certain chords on certain words to bring out the meaning of a word.

An ode to New York City, the album is like an insider’s guide to the locations and moments that make up life in the city that never sleeps. ‘Is It Even Gonna Snow’ feels like one of those very personal tracks that alludes to a great many experiences, all amalgamated into one piece. Can you elaborate on the track’s inception and what NYC means to you?

That song is about a relationship I had with somebody. It was my attempt at making a love song meets diary confession. I guess there was a kind of suicidality that I projected onto New York City and I used this relationship as that story/idea. It feels like a time capsule song.

Working with Shimmy-Disc founder Kramer who also co-produced the record, what did he bring to the table that you feel helped assemble or elevate the album?

Kramer has a very sophisticated approach to bringing out the color and meaning of songs. He also helped me grow as a songwriter as he had me rewrite “You just liked my item” because it was very fast when I showed it to him and he wanted it to be very slow. When I first heard him say this, I was a bit nervous because I didn’t understand how I would be able to make it slow. But then when I did recompose the song, I found a creepy persona in the lyrics that I had previously skipped over with the fast version. The creepy aspect of these lyrics has a sort of echoing quality to the song and I feel a lot of what Kramer’s tracks have is an echoing sentiment/sound, like a lingering feeling.

He expanded the beauty of the recordings in an emotional way, I feel a lot of emotion in his playing.

Having worked with so many different artists and musicians across your immediate work as an artist and wider, peripheral work in the festival and management space, has there been any words of wisdom spoken to you or defining moments you experienced that really resonated with you, which in turn altered the way you approach your craft?

an organizer. The shows that I organize have a strategy and the strategy is to make the evening itself a work of art. With each bill, I am hoping to disrupt the notion that shows must all be one genre with all musicians. I am very interested in disrupting an assumed sound in a show with another one: essentially genre diffusion is something I’ve been interested in for years and organizing is a place where I often do it very largely. After one act performs sweet soft indie songs , another artist follows with ear bleeding saxophone. You would think that this could be offensive, but I have noticed it makes the artist appreciate each other’s work even more and highlights the differences and also is a statement about artists being categorized and labeled when we’re all just artists. A huge part of what I am doing is producing a certain soundscape that changes over the evening in an unexpected and eclectic way. Of course it’s not just art but it’s also community work and supporting other artists and connecting artists to other artists, and people to other people.

Of course, there have been so many moments to the question. I have to say that organizing shows is probably one of the biggest things that has expanded me as an artist and person. Just being around so many different types of artists helps you not get stuck in an echo chamber of ideas, of certain ways to behave artistically and of certain ways to think artistically. It provides me so much freedom artistically to be around different types of artists.

I remember it impacted me very much when I had booked Yoshiko Chuma & the school of hard knocks, (Yoshiko) an original and extremely talented movement artist. The space that I booked them at was big, but when filled with people, you could barely move in the space without bumping into people. Their performance was so impactful and so up close and intimate and cutting with the audience and they went into the audience and into the back room and used the space in really interesting ways. The whole time I was quite nervous that they were upset about the size of the space: but afterwards, Yoshiko told me that she absolutely loved performing at the show because of the situation, (being the other performers, the DIY nature of the space the concept for the events I’m doing) And it was a huge confirmation that what I am doing is exciting and resonates with other artists and people.

Lastly, on something of a philosophical note, what does music give you that nothing else does?

Music gives us a channel to process our experience in the world that is like no other channel.