Clémentine March Discusses Her First PRAH Release
Transmission 297: Interview with Clémentine March
Clémentine March is a London-based French-British chanteuse and multi-instrumentalist who inhabits the overlap between classical training and the fringes of experimental pop. Her songs examine the mechanics of memory, personal instability, and the sudden volatility of human desire. Her work operates within a sharp friction where the harmonic weight of Brazilian luminaries like Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges collide with the motorik drive of the 90s underground.
Artist: Clémentine March
Release Date: 2026-01-09
Genres: Art Rock, Experimental Music, Indie Rock, Pop, Post-punk
Description: Clémentine March discusses her album Powder Keg, out Jan 9 on PRAH. An interview on Brazilian influence, London DIY, and creative legitimacy.
March has built her reputation through collaborations as a bass player for Snapped Ankles and Rozi Plain, and by touring with Big Thief, following a raw, textured approach to songwriting. Her latest album, Powder Keg, is scheduled for release on January 9th, 2026, through PRAH Recordings. Produced by Joe Futák, the record features an ensemble cast including Alabaster DePlume, Naima Bock, and Katy J Pearson, capturing a sense of connection in a complex, polarized world.
Featured image: Clémentine March, © Louise Mason, 2025
Which record or artist were the real turning points for your musical sensibility?
It’s a very difficult question, but also a very good one. I would say one album I can say for sure completely changed my life is a Brazilian record from the early 70s, but obviously I discovered it way later. It’s called Clube da Esquina and it’s a record by Brazilian artists Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges.
It’s a collaborative album that was released in 1972, from memory. I was living in Brazil—no, actually at the time I was in Argentina. I was living in Buenos Aires 20 years ago, a bit over 20 years ago. A friend of mine said, “You absolutely need to listen to this record.” It’s almost like a template of Latin American songwriting; all the songwriters just had a go on that record and it changed their lives.
I said, “Okay, well, if you’re selling me this way, I need to listen to that.” Indeed, this double album is extraordinary and it encompasses so many ranges of music. It’s very long, but never boring at all. It’s a mix somewhere between The Beatles and Brazilian traditional music, with a bit of experimental jazz. All that stuff combined really changed my relationship to music and songwriting. I probably wouldn’t be making this music if I hadn’t listened to that record back then.
The most important lesson you learned from your years in the conservatoire?
The first years, as a child, I found the rigidity a bit difficult, to be honest with you. Learning all the music theory at a very young age was very dry. Then, when I came into my teenage years, I switched from violin to classical guitar. Things became a bit more welcoming for me, where there was less pressure on results and more enjoying the process.
I’m grateful for those years now, because I’m probably not the most educated musician ever. But what I could grasp from those years and still keep now is very, very valuable. Though I would never say that there is only one way of being a musician. It was the tools I had as a child, learning all these things, but it could be tough sometimes.
What were the biggest hurdles you faced when you first decided to start creating your own music?
There is one and it’s a huge one. It’s still today: giving yourself full legitimacy to do that. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I really started my career super young, which wasn’t exactly the case. It took me a little while to realize that it was absolutely essential; I had to do that.
I discovered to my own surprise that actually I was able to write a song, for example, and I had no idea. Still to this day, I’m always negotiating those moments. I’m like, “Why am I doing that?” and then there is an inner urge to do it. Sometimes the hardest bit for me is just to stand by this initial spark and say, “Okay, let’s keep on doing it.” Whatever happens can be in a good way.
You need to trust the process. That’s sometimes a bit hard because we’re not in a society where you’re encouraged to daydream and make your songs; you need to be efficient all the time. I guess it’s the same for any artist or any discipline. Yourself is your worst enemy sometimes.
Is there a particular club or place in Paris that is closely tied to your early musical memories?
Paris. I would say films. So it’s not Paris, but going to the cinema with my grandmother as a child and probably being impressed by soundtracks. In Paris itself, I remember a friend of my dad bringing me to see Sting when I was like 10 or something like that. That was my first big show. It was the first time I could experience what it feels like to hear loud music and experience a massive crowd. There were probably twelve thousand people and I had never seen that before in my life. I was like, “Oh my goodness, that’s how loud music sounds.” It was quite deafening. At the time, it wasn’t even a thing to wear ear protection, so I lived it in full glory. It was really crazy.
I felt like London had surprisingly a huge sense of solidarity between people.
How would you describe the atmosphere of the London scene when you first arrived? And what did the London underground offer your sound that you couldn’t find anywhere else?
That’s a great question once again. I arrived here exactly 10 years ago. I had visited London previously over the past two years and even recorded some music with a few musicians. What brought me to London was that the music scene was incredibly rich in diversity, which is absolutely not the case in Paris or other cities in Brazil—for example, I used to live in Sao Paulo.
There is also an incredibly big scene there, but I felt like London had surprisingly a huge sense of solidarity between people. It’s a funny one, because obviously we’re in a capitalist world where everyone is trying to make their way towards success or getting a nice deal with a label. Yet I really met so many great people and saw incredible communication between bands and musicians.
Next month, I’m going to tour with a David Byrne cover band and we’re going to play in big venues like KOKO in London. That big band is a conglomerate of many prominent musicians in London, like people from Dry Cleaning, The Last Dinner Party, and other bands. It’s crazy that you can build those associations.
It’s quite easy to put a show in London if you find the right DIY space. There are venues like New River Studios or a place called DIY Space for London, which sadly shut down before COVID. I did support shows for big American bands, which I would never have gotten if I had stayed in Paris where things are a bit more narrow and the scene is way smaller. London is the entry point in Europe for every English-speaking country. When I arrived, it was clearly a big hub for all the American bands, so I met so many people this way.
The idea of the whole album is a very loose concept about intensity—it’s not necessarily good to be intense.
What is the album, what’s at risk of exploding, and is there a common thread between the tracks?
The album was inspired by a funny story. I was playing a show for a festival with a band called Tapir!. For that special show, we played at St Pancras Old Church in 2023 and covered the song by Bonnie Tyler, that famous song called Total Eclipse of the Heart from the 80s. It’s quite kitsch, but very fun and heartbreaking. There was this line where Powder Keg was included.
Because English is not my first language, I didn’t know this expression. When I looked for it, I was like, “Oh wow, okay, that’s the metaphorical thing you say when two countries are about to be at war.” It’s tense; there is something in the air and you don’t know what it is. I felt that was a great title, a bit cheeky as well, because we live in a world where it’s a bit unstable right now.
I thought I could maybe apply this to talk about a relationship from start to finish—the fact that you’re into one person and sometimes it doesn’t go the way you planned, or it can be super intense and melt down. The idea of the whole album is a very loose concept, but it’s the idea of something that can be intense. It’s not necessarily good to be intense. I tried to create something a bit bittersweet that was optimistic and also a bit sad sometimes.
What’s the most important lesson you brought back from the Brazilian music scene?
The harmony and the sense of melodies. For sure, I’m really influenced by big artists like Chico Buarque. For musicianship, I feel very humble when I see Brazilian musicians; it’s so incredible technically. I met friends who play with this artist called Ana Frango Elétrico over the past two years and I was absolutely mind-blown by their musicality. They made everything sound so rich and so interesting. Sometimes I can find European musicians a bit monochrome. That’s why I love the richness in tones and the rhythmical approach in South America and Brazil in particular. There is so much more diversity and incredible rhythms to explore.
When you are in your studio, what’s the one piece of equipment that you rely on to find your signature sound?
My voice and my guitar. There is not much more stuff, to be honest. I’m not that technical. I tend to write with an electric guitar because it has a bigger range, so I can go a bit further up the neck. Also, when you plug your guitar into an amp, there is a sense of power that it gives to you. Everything can be quite twangy and sometimes more fun to play than with an acoustic, though these days I tend to play a bit more acoustic myself. Electric guitar, my voice, and a notebook to write a few lyrics are enough. I’m trying to write more with a piano at the moment, which is not my instrument, but I find the challenge very interesting because you can’t make the same sounds and songs with a different instrument.
I still trust in the power of gathering with music, and in a very complex and polarised world, having this sense of being welcoming, reaching out to different types of people.
How do you decide which collaborators are the right fit for a specific song?
That’s a good question because it depends on the album I’m making. This new one, Powder Keg, is the third one. For this one, I self-consciously wanted to have something more lush than before. I really wanted to have a bold sound. It always starts with a trio, having the same people in the room first.
It may sound strange because it’s very produced, but all the backing tracks were three people in the same room over a weekend. Then we amplified it with other friends joining in. We got very lucky because the first studio session after the recording, we had a trombonist, Rosie Turton, who is an incredible musician. The trombone gave so much clarity to the whole record’s identity; I said, “Okay, this is a very important instrument.” In the sound, it is almost like an extension of the voice.
On my previous album, for example, it was just me alone with my guitar in the room because it was made during COVID. I wanted that to be clear. The choice of collaborators are people I admire, people I see playing in other bands like Magdalena McLean on violin, who also plays with the band caroline. Obviously there is this thirst for making collaborations together, but I think it also comes down to a specific album’s identity. I’m not the most controlling person in the world, so I’m just giving an idea and, more often than not, they come up with their own ideas and we share them together.
How did the collaborative process with Joe Futák push you to reconsider your own production habits?
With Joe Futák, it’s a lovely story. Joe had written to me during the COVID years saying that he really enjoyed my first album, Le Continent, but we never met. Eventually, we met in the summer of 23 at a show we played at the George Tavern in London. Joe was doing the sound and that’s the moment where we really met in person.
He came to me after the show saying, “If you want to record the album, I would love to do it.” I already appreciated his work with Tapir!, so that’s what happened. We met each other halfway because Joe is someone whose sound is very rich, while mine is a bit more minimal. Sometimes I’m in favor of not processing too much or keeping a mistake if it sounds cool, but sometimes it would be the other way around. He wanted it to be loose and I wanted to be a bit more of a control freak on some stuff. It was a very nice collaboration. It took us quite a few months to mix it, and I really enjoyed that process. It wasn’t easy, but in a good way of finding out what the album really was.
Have you already started working on something new or are you focused entirely on this release now?
Actually, we are recording a new one at the moment. I have the same amount of new songs and I’m writing lyrics right now because I tend to write them a bit late. I always have the music and melodies first. We’ll be recording this year, so there will be another album at some point soon.
Photos courtesy of Clémentine March
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