My fav albums & Songs of 2018 (with playlists!)

Another year, another list! (people still like lists right?!)
Here were my favourite albums of the year, plus two playlists! My favourite albums and favourite songs. Give them a listen, follow, whatever! Happy New Year folks!

TOP 10

1. Little kid - might as well with my soul
2. Jeremy Dutcher - Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa
3. Adrianne Lenker - Abysskiss
4. Kamasi Washington - heaven and earth
5. Noname - room 25
6. Hayley Heynderickx - I need to start a garden
7. Snorri Hallgrimsson - Orbit
8. Dana Sipos - Trick Of The Light
9. Shad - a short story about war
10. Free cake for every creature - the bluest star

The Next 5

11. The internet - hive mind
12. Doug paisley - Starter Home
13. Corey Gulkin - All The Things I’ll Forget
14. Foxwarren
15. JFDR - White Sun Live Part 1: String

OK here are my fav albums of 2018... this is stressful!

My Favourite Songs Playlist!

Here are some of the songs that really spoke to me this year! They remind me of good friends, cool new places and difficult emotions. Featuring many friends and probably a few surprises.

Back to Iceland!

I’m excited to be going back to Reykjavik this November for a few shows around Iceland Airwaves! I’ve been dreaming about this festival for a long time, so it seems crazy that I’m not only going, I’ll be playing an off-venue show as well! 6 years ago, when I first visited the country as a tourist, I bought a couple records from a guy named Snorri Helgason and this week I’ll be opening for him. Life is strange. Anyways, here are the dates, tell your Icelandic / Airwaves friends!

Tuesday November 6th, 9pm
Dillon Whiskey Bar (Airwaves Off Venue)
With Petur Ben & Snorri Helgason

Saturday November 10th, 4pm
Aurora House
with Svavar Knutur

Saturday November 10th, 6pm
Ida Zimsen
Alllll byyyyy myseeeeeellf

And I get to play with my friend Svavar! Man, that guy is a real delight. So maybe I’ll see you there Iceland!

SWC

FMO Recap

Hey friends, I wanted to take a moment to talk about this years Folk Music Ontario conference, if you got a sec, read along!

I've been coming to this function for 5 years, and finally I was able to officially showcase, which is a huge honour and the most scared I've been for a gig in a long time. It's an audience full of my peers, so I knew I'd receive lots of love and support, but it just felt so important to put on a good show. With the help of my wonderful band, Michael McDonnell, Kristian Noel Pedersen, new comer Bill Simms & special guest and my musical sister Abigail Lapell, I feel like I might have accomplished that.

I couldn't possibly thank everyone who made this weekend special. But I’d like to quickly Thank the judges who saw fit to award Bellwoods Park the best Instrumental for this years Songs From The Heart awards (AHI, Noosa Al-Sarraj & Emma Julian). It’s really such a wonderful honour.

Emotionally, So many new and old friends kept me in working order, but special thanks to the The Campsite & The Lifers crew who managed to always be around when I needed moments of calm, and my Songwriters In The Round friends when I needed moments of chaos.

I’d just like to end this note with something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and was hoping to talk about more this weekend. I guess this is a call for thoughtfulness. To my songwriter friends who identify as male, I have a question, and maybe we can think think about this for a little while and come back to next years conference and try to have an open and honest discussion about it. My question is this;

In the songs that you write, and the songs that you cover, how are the women treated? What is their purpose?

These questions have already helped me learn a few things about myself, and I think it’s making me a stronger songwriter, and maybe you’ll find the same results. But I’d love to hear what you think.

See you on the road!

SWC

SWC at FMO 2018!

Folkie friends! This weekend is the Folk Music Ontario conference and yours truly has his first OFFICIAL SHOWCASE!! AAaaaaghhHHhh!! And I won an award (whaaaaaaaa???) Below you can find more info about those and two amazing private showcases I’ll be taking part in. Hope you can make it. Find out more about FMO at their website

OFFICIAL SHOWCASE

Sat Sept 29th // York Room (Full band) // 9pm

This is the big one! I’ve been coming to FMO for the last 4 years and this has been the goal! I have a full band featuring my longtime keyboard player Kristian Pedersen, drummer Mike McDonnell and new face on the bass, Bill Simms! With special guest Abigail Lapell joining for a couple songs.

PRIVATE SHOWCASE

Fri Sept 28th // LAMApalooza Room 233 // 12:30pm

My good friend Preetam Sengupta puts on this room every year, and I’ve been lucky enough to be asked to be a part on a couple occasions. This year he’s doing something different, having a series of songwriter rounds. I’ll be joining two very talented songwriters Rachel Beck and Gabrielle Papillon!

Sat Sept 29th // Songwriters in The Round Room 229 // 11:30pm

This will be a new room for me. Gillian Nicola has been putting on this songwriters in the round series at Painted Lady for some time, and now she’s bringing it to FMO! This Saturday I’ll be joining friends Shawna Caspi and Sarah Hiltz to play share some tunes!

Bellwoods Park wins Songs From The Heart Best Instrumental Award!

Bellwoods Park seems to be the song that keeps on giving. Not only is it my highest played song on Spotify (over 1 million plays!), but it just won me my first songwriting award! The Folk Music Ontario Songs From The Heart Award for best instrumental. This was such a surprise. I submitted a bunch of my new songs to a few different categories, and threw this one in at the last minute… and here we are. Award Winning Songwriter Shawn William Clarke. Very nice. I’ll post a pic of my award later (will it be a statue? A nice piece of paper? A firm handshake?! We will soon find out!)

So see you at FMO 2018 folk lovers!

SWC Goes back to Europe!

I'm excited to report that I'll be heading back to Europe in a couple weeks, with stops in Iceland, Germany & Denmark!  Tell your friends! 

August 24th - 26th: Melodica Festival. Reykjavik Iceland
August 28th - Kulturcafe Lichtung - Koln Germany
August 29th - Iva's Croatian Grill & Bar - Bad Soden Germany
August 31st - Madame Claude - Berlin German (with Drunk At Your Wedding)
September 3rd - Mojo Juke Joint - Copenhagen Denmark
September 5th - Altes Stellwerk - Solingen Germany

TOPAZ East Coast Tour

Friends in the East Coast!  Fun stuff coming up.  First off, VIA rail has the wonderful program called VIA On Board, where they have a Canadian musician play on one of their trips East or West.  I'm excited to say that I'll be taking the train & playing my tunes from Montreal to Halifax!  Should be a blast. 

While I'm in the East, I'm going to play some shows!  The schedule is above in the photo, but here's a little more info below.  Please tell your friends! 

April 21st:  Syndey NS, house show (DM me for details!)
April 22nd: Halifax NS, Gus Pub with Cameron Nickerson
April 23rd: Digby NS, Sydney Street Pub
April 25th: Moncton NB, Plan B with Richard Laviolette
April 26th: Fredericton NB, Capital Theatre
April 27th: St. John NB, Taco Pica for Quality Block Party Festival, with Falling Leaves & East Coast Ragamuffins
April 28th: Breadalbane PEI, The Dunk with Richard Laviolette
April 29th: Sackville NB, Thunder & Lightning with Richard Laviolette

Hope you're all doing well!  See you soon

SWC

Happy International Women's Day!

Hello friends!  I'd like to quickly thank a few of the collaborators who made "TOPAZ" with me. I can't tell you how much better this album is because of their contributions. (Please visit their websites, to check out all the amazing art they're creating!)

Thanks to our three guest vocalists Abigail Lapell, Olenka Krakus & Anna Horvath who were brilliant, each adding their own special voice to the songs.

Thanks to Alexis Marsh whose woodwind performances and arrangements were essential, and to Christine Bougie whose guitar solo in "You're Lonely, Too" was tasteful and perfect.

Thanks to the visual artists Laura Proctor who captured an appropriate moment of calmness for the album photo, and Jessica Rae Gordon (my longest running collaborator, working on all my albums since the very beginning), whose artwork perfectly captured the themes and ideas found in the music.

I tried my best to sustain a gender equality on the production of this album, and while I think it was successful, I know I can and will do better on making an inclusive team for future SWC projects.

Happy International Woman's Day! #IWD2018

Podcast Appearances!

Hey friends, it's still snowy & cold, so I'm still in a hibernation mode.  I'll have some fun news for you soon re: touring, so all is not lost.  In the meantime, I've had the absolute pleasure to appear on two very different music podcasts, that you can listen to below.  If you have the time, check out some of the other episodes on each of these, they're both a blast.  (Click the titles to listen!)

No Sleep Til Sudbury

No Sleep Til Sudbury has a simple but fun concept.  Host Brent Jensen walks a different artist each week through a few songs of their choice that "makes their skin vibrate".  I go through a quick chronology of my influences, from Supertramp to Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, The Blue Nile and ending on Land of Talk.
Further Listening: check the episodes featuring Stephen Stanley & Dave Bidini

All About The Song

Michael McDonnell is a wonderful musician (has played bass with me over the last couple months), and a very thoughtful interviewer.  Like myself, he favours the long form interview, where you can really dig deep into a musicians background & feelings.  We cover A LOT of ground on this interview, from my early high school days up to today.  I play 3 songs on this podcast, including a new song that you can't hear anywhere else! 
Further Listening: Check out the episodes featuring Sean Mendes drummer Mike Sleath, and Parallel's songwriter Holly Dodson

Hope you're well!  Keep in touch.

SWC

My Fav Albums of 2017

And we're at the end.  2017 was another crazy year for the world, but a pretty solid year for me.  I released what I think is my best work yet, TOPAZ (which you can listen to by clicking this run on sentance).  I also toured Europe for the first time ever, and that was such an amazing experience.  I'll be heading back soon, you can bet on that.  In the new year you can expect more shows in Ontario, an East Coast tour in April/May, and as I just mentioned, a trip back to Europe.  Know any places I should play?  Send me an email at shawnclarkemusic@gmail.com

Now on to something I love to do every year, somehow take the hundreds of albums I heard and narrow them down to a few for totally arbitrary reasons!  At the bottom you'll find a super handy Spotify link where you can listen to a track from all the albums I mention (or just click on this sentence!).  Enjoy!

The Top 10

1. Weather Station - Weather Station
2. Alvvays - Antisocialites
3. Little Kid - Sun Milk
4. Sampha - The Process
5. Moses Sumney - Aromanticism
6. Land of Talk - Life After Youth
7. Abigail Lapell - Hide Nor Hair
8. Fiest - Pleasure
9. Jon McKiel - Memorial Ten Count
10. Big Thief - Capacity

The Next 5

1. Richard Laviolette - Taking The Long Way Home
2. Jerry Leger - Nonsense And Heartache
3. Kelela - Take Me Apart
4. Timber Timbre - Sincerely, Future Pollution
5. Kendrick Lamar - DAMN

Extra: Two Reissues you should definitely own

So here are 2 fun extras for you.  I absolutely loved these reissues, and played them so much.  First, Jackie Shane - Any Other Way .  Jackie was a pioneer of transgender rights born in a male body, living her entire life as a woman at a time when to do so seemed unthinkable.  And she was an icon in Toronto during the 60's.  All that and the music is fantastic.  She should be more well known.

Next is the longest title of the year, World Sprituality Classics 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda .  Another artist who should be better known.  This is a collection of her spiritual music, recorded at the Ashram she established and directed in 1983. As someone who spent a lot of time with Ambient, New Age and Spiritual music this year (and as someone who's spent a lifetime exploring the world of Free Jazz and experimental music), this comp is a must get! 

Thanks folks!  I hope you had a great 2017, and if you think I missed any great albums, please comment below! 

Love, and best wishes for the new year

SWC

FB Friends Fav Albums of 2017

Hey friends!  So it's getting to the end of 2017! 2016 was a bit of a dumpster fire for me personally, so this year has been a welcome change.  I'll have a year end wrap up + my personal top albums of 2017, but in the meantime, I asked my friends on Facebook for their recommendations, and they didn't disappoint!  I hope you enjoy the playlist I made from them!