Benjamin Clementine Announces New track

01 June, 2017
Written by Marky Edison

Edmonton singer, songwriter and poet Benjamin Clementine has today unveiled his first new music since being awarded 2015’s Mercury Music Prize for his debut album At Least For Now. Entitled ‘Phantom Of Aleppoville’ the track was written, recorded and produced by Clementine and follows his recent collaboration with Gorillaz on ‘Hallelujah Money’. Clementine has also announced a series of UK & European headline dates for November and December 2017, including London’s Brixton Academy on December 5th. A New York show at Carnegie Hall has already been announced for October 5.

Accompanied by a video shot by photographer Craig McDean and filmmaker Masha Vasyukova, Clementine composed ‘Phantom Of Aleppoville’ after being affected by the writing of pioneering British psychoanalyst Donald Winicott. He wrote extensively about children who have experienced bullying in the home and at school, discovering that while the trauma was naturally not comparable in scale to that suffered by children displaced by war, its effects followed similar patterns. Seeing in Winicott’s writing a mirror of his own childhood experiences, Clementine chose the title – the “little city of Aleppo” – to symbolise a place where children encounter such bullying. Says Clementine, “Aleppoville is a place where many are bullied if not all, but no one understands nor see why; Phantom.”

Benjamin Clementine released his debut album At Least For Now in January 2015. The album secured Clementine the UK Mercury Prize and in France the ‘Best New Act’ honours at Les Victories de la Musique, whilst in the U.S Clementine featured on the cover of the New York Times, interviewed by David Byrne. Clementine is especially beloved for his emotionally charged live performances. The Guardian, in a five star live-review, describing the artist as “a true original… his intense songs, autobiographical and elliptical as they are, could not conceivably be anyone else.”