Clarice Jensen - In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness Clarice Jensen

Clarice Jensen releases her fourth solo album, In holiday clothing, out of the great darkness, on 17 October 2025 via FatCat Records’ 130701 imprint. The new album showcases Jensen’s distinctive compositional approach, in which she improvises and layers her cello through shifting loops and a chain of electronic effects, exploring a series of rich, drone-based sound fields. Pulsing, visceral and full of colour, her work is deeply immersive, marked by a wonderful sense of restraint and an almost hallucinatory clarity.

Having made a solo move to the Berkshire Mountains in upstate New York in September 2020 after years living in Brooklyn, Jensen found herself confronting and enjoying a newfound solitude as the nonstop movement and collaboration of city life had come to a standstill. The first LP she made post-move, Esthesis, is largely devoid of cello, synth heavy, and examines emotions in a self-conscious way from an isolated point of view that is nearly one-dimensional.

Jensen sets new parameters for this new album, placing the acoustic sound of the cello at the fore, and affecting the sound only through a few effects (octave displacement, delay, tremolo and looping).  “It felt necessary to return to the rich acoustic sound of the cello that I've loved and produced for nearly my entire life, and to return to an expression of emotion that's multi-dimensional and sincere,” she notes.

As a soloist, Jensen endeavours to establish a new tradition of solo cello performance that integrates electronics with the storied and beloved performance practice intrinsic to the instrument. She places great importance on finding and working with effects pedals that integrate well with the cello (and avoids overt use of plugins or playback).

The solo cello works of J.S. Bach as a central backdrop to this new album. Bach’s Solo Cello Suites display a rich range of voices created by one instrument. Having found ways to expand the sound and voice of the instrument through electronics, Jensen found it fitting to return to Bach's works as a way to touch back in with the tradition of the instrument.

“… what steps forth, in holiday clothing, out of the great darkness."– Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

As a composer, Jensen insists that the programmatic elements of her albums align and ring true. She writes that, “the quote from Rilke had been bouncing around my mind for many years; the visualisation of musical ideas being born and echoing inside a ‘great darkness,’ then emerging ‘in holiday clothing’ felt very beautiful and tangible, and this essay, which to me is a manifesto in celebration of solitude, depicts what so many artists and composers experience when they endeavour solitary work. This album reflects a personal and conceptual exploration of what solo means.”