Benjamin Clementine releases new single ‘Jupiter’

Mercury Prize-winning singer, songwriter and pianist Benjamin Clementine today released Jupiter, the third track to be aired from his forthcoming album I Tell a Fly. Following the dynamic neo-classical epic Phantom of Aleppoville and hauntingly relevant God Save the Jungle; the song is further proof of Clementine’s flawing vocal abilities and innate understanding of the disconnection that troubles many individuals within modern society.

Though just 28, Clementine is well-placed to explore hardship through his songwriting, having found himself homeless and disconnected from his family by his late teens. He slept rough on the streets of Paris before a chance encounter afforded him the opportunity to arrange a management and recording deal, eventually leading to the creation of his arresting 2015 debut At Least For Now. Clementine has won many high-profile fans, not least the judges of the 2015 Mercury panel, but also artists like David Byrne, who said of Clementine “it seemed to me that Clementine’s auto-didacticism was his way of asking how one should be in a world that doesn’t make sense — the type of inquisitive probing we get in his soulful songs, which draw on the work of French performers such as Léo Ferré, Édith Piaf and Henri Salvador. His stirring, impassioned tenor sounds like it’s from another world, but it’s the singer’s questioning of the one we live in that sets his music apart”. The New York Times, whom Byrne was writing for when making those comments, named Clementine among their 28 geniuses who defined culture in 2016, showing the international impact he and his music are registering.

Listen to Jupiter below and be sure to pick up tickets for Clementine’s return to Manchester on 4th December at O2 Ritz.