I added the album Beautiful Skeletons by Gavin Clark.
I’d never heard of him, actually, although I guess I heard some of his music when I watched This Is England. Back in the day director Shane Meadows, actor/director Paddy Considine and Leisure Society frontman Nick Hemmings all sort of moved in the same circles. Meadows and Considine went on to be movie icons in the UK. Hemmings pocketed an Ivor Novello award or two, and his band is my favorite band going at the moment.
Gavin Clark remained absent. He had a substance abuse problem in younger days that seems to have devastated him, left his psyche scarred and fragile. He put a band together in the 1990s, released an album to massive critical acclaim, and saw it go nowhere. Like the guy he’s so often compared to, Nick Drake, Clark seemed to walk an odd tightrope then: particular and assured of what he was doing musically to often almost singleminded purpose…while remaining crashingly shy, feeling inferior, wondering if anything he created was particularly worthwhile.
The 2000s were a bit better for him. Meadows leaned on him more and more, using Clark’s music and having him do original scores for his films. He put together a band called Clayhill that put out a record or two. No less a light than British music eclecticists UNKLE used Clark’s voice on a number of tracks.
It’s easy to understand why. Clark’s voice does sort of ring of a Nick Drake-ish familiarity, although he’s a bit rawer, a bit darker. Perhaps Nick Drake if he’d grown up singing John Lee Hooker or (ha ha) Son House.
Director Shane Meadows was such a booster of Clark’s, that he decided to bootstrap his friend and help him launch a solo career of sorts. The idea was this: Meadows would make a documentary about Clark’s attempt to forge a career that would start with him simply playing a concert in his living room in front of a group of family and friends, and then see where things went.
Beautiful Skeletons is the concurrent release to that documentary. The first half is acoustic versions and demos of Sunhouse and Clayhill songs. (The sequence from “Hurricane” through “Black Blood” and then “Crazy on the Weekend” is harrowing and then like a gray sunrise after a terrible night.) The second half are the songs recorded for Meadows’ films, and where you can really feel like Gavin Clark was actually getting better with age. “Low are the Punches” is gorgeous. “Painted Glass” is stunning.
The documentary is called Living Room. It’s actually online to watch here. It can be tough to watch. Clark seems like an engaging fuckup, sometimes unable to get out of the way of his own self when his routine is disturbed. In the last 15 minutes, he finally performs his first living room gig in front of a dozen family and friends. His hands are trembling from fear so badly that he can barely strum his guitar. His voice cracks hoarsely. I suppose that Meadows wanted a bit of a triumphant ending for the film and its arc, so it ends with Clark two years later on stage with a full band, playing a hugely crowded outdoor show, looking far more confident and self-possessed. That’s the film’s “Searching For Sugar Man” ending.
The movie came out on February 9th. On the morning of February 16th, Clark passed away suddenly at age 46, a final cruel cut to the guy. He was working on new material with other collaborators and a proper solo album. For now, this is it. I first heard of Gavin Clark the day after he died, when Nick Hemmings posted the news and then mentioned that the song “Bermondsey Stutter” (it’s the second to last track on Beautiful Skeletons) was his favorite ever.
The last song on the last record released during Gavin Clark’s lifetime might be better. It’s a haunting, gorgeous, nakedly beautiful track called “I Dreamt Of God”, and if you were going to write your own epitaph you’d have a hard time topping this.
Not for every mood, by any means, but perfect for a cold rainy day. And goddamn. Beautiful Skeletons exists to mock Clark’s fears of his inadequacy as an artist. It’s one of the most gorgeous and haunting records I’ve heard in recent months.
(Also beware, there’s another musician named Gavin Clark who has some records up on Spotify. This is the Gavin Clark you want, and this is his only solo album. His other stuff is also available though under Sunhouse and Clayhill.)