Brand new album – October 17th via Corduroy Punk
Far From Nowhere, recorded in a cabin in the Scottish Highlands,
Indie-folk singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer Josienne Clarke is often said to draw on traditional British folk inspirations, but is a thoroughly modern, multifaceted artist who follows her own compass.
Blessed with a voice of crystalline beauty and clarity that has been compared to Sandy Denny, her myriad talents translate effortlessly to the live space in performances that are all her own. She has extensive touring experience having been a Rough Trade-signed, Radio 2 Folk Award-winning artist–two opposing poles that neatly sum up her inability to be pigeonholed–and has also been hand-picked as main tour support for folk legend Richard Thompson. She’s shared a stage with Robert Plant and has written songs for an adaptation of The Snow Queen for the National Theatre, performed by children aged 7-11.
Her varied background and effortless musicality mean a cover of Radiohead is just as likely to appear on the setlist as Nick Drake. She’s been able to slot seamlessly into the bill of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival as easily as that of End of the Road.
“Her voice is a breathtakingly lovely balm” The Guardian
Born of practical constraint, Far From Nowhere is a natural step and defiant response to the logistical and emotional tolls of trying to eke out a living in the music industry in 2025.
“Making music today, for me, often feels like an exercise in retreat,” Clarke says. “The structure of the industry slowly suffocates the spirit of artists, starving them of the self-esteem that comes from remuneration for a job well done, so retreating to a cabin in the woods to make my album made sense.”
Arriving in the Scottish Highlands for a week with sketches of songs, Clarke had a clutch of instruments and a plan to record using only analogue equipment with Murray Collier, co-producing with Clarke, operating the tape machine. There was no detailed plan, no pre-production ideas, and — thanks to an untimely chest infection — barely a voice for the first couple of days. In place of polish comes rawness, but it only augments these largely solo performances of stark, singular beauty.
What’s captured, including the sometimes painful process in the companion short film Deluded, is a form of songcraft that feels elemental. This is an album that crackles with presence: tape hiss, buzzing strings, fingers shifting on fretboards, even the occasional semi-flubbed note or audible breaths. Silence at times becomes a participant as much as the cascading, austere melodies and Clarke’s signature vocals.
Clarke has always been unafraid to ask questions with no clear answers, and here she gives herself no hiding place. In that sense, this is her most complete artistic statement yet as she spins rawness into elegance. While she admits it may not join the pantheon of classic isolation records — “I’m not in control of the historic time and wider context in which I’m creating and it’s not for me to be diverted by whether my output has any place in popularity,” she says — it still sits firmly in the lineage of Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago, and the lo-fi solo work of Adrianne Lenker.
Far From Nowhere speaks authentically, stripping almost everything back musically — not just for practicality’s sake (although it is a call to value attention and our imperfections) and never for novelty but in pursuit of existential truth. In doing so, Clarke invites us into a space where her songs breathe anew: flawed and fragile, radiant and composed. Closer “A Slow Burn” is a coda and a thesis. A meditation on patience, endurance, and the long arc of an artistic life, Clarke exhorts not just herself but anyone listening to keep going even when the creative fires may only be embers. That encouragement, like the record itself, is less a statement and more a hand gently reaching out.
‘What Do I Do?’ is available to download now https://ffm.to/farfromnowhere
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