Album Review: Filip Clements – Taking Flight
Filip Clements has one of those origin stories that a publicist would invent if it weren't true. Born in Norway, enlisted in the army as a teenager, found himself writing songs late into the night on a broken-down piano in a small chapel somewhere in the Arctic Circle. That's where the music started. The EP that came out of all this — produced with Grammy winners Catherine Marks and Martin Terefe, and The Wombats' Tord Knudsen — lands on April 30th through Eastcote Recordings, a new London label operating out of a studio that has hosted everyone from Depeche Mode to Arctic Monkeys to Wolf Alice.
The title track opens things up with a buzzing, grounded bass and the kind of romantically charged atmosphere that The Strokes used to own before they got tired of owning it. Clements has a voice built for this — warm, a little dangerous, the sort that sounds good coming out of a car window at night. The song captures something specific: that particular anticipation of a night that might go anywhere. It does what a good opening track should do, which is make you want to hear what comes next.
What comes next is "Right Place Wrong Time," and it's the EP's best moment. The bass riff that drives it lands somewhere between Franz Ferdinand and early Kasabian — that nervy, propulsive dance-rock that made 2005 feel like the most exciting year in music. Clements knows exactly what he's doing here: dry, slightly menacing verses and then a chorus that opens up like a room full of people who've been waiting all night to sing something together. The architecture is pure Max Martin — restrained and then released — and it works.
"Typhoon" pivots toward something warmer and more retro, somewhere in the territory Mark Ronson was mapping when he was making records with Amy Winehouse. There's a looseness to it, a vintage ease. Clements wears it comfortably.
Closer "Fever Dream" pulls the two best qualities of the EP into the same room — groove and atmosphere, moving together rather than taking turns. The guitar has a Coldplay-ish shimmer to it, and the whole thing builds with the patient confidence of a band that knows the payoff is coming. It's a good note to end on.
Taking Flight is an assured debut from someone who clearly knows his references and, more importantly, knows how to make them his own. The names on the production credits — Marks, Terefe, Knudsen — suggest people who can spot a future headliner. On this evidence, they spotted right.
The EP drops April 30th. Catch Clements live in London this May and June — The Troubadour on May 12th, The Half Moon in Putney on June 1st, Hope & Anchor on June 15th, and several more through the summer.
The title track opens things up with a buzzing, grounded bass and the kind of romantically charged atmosphere that The Strokes used to own before they got tired of owning it. Clements has a voice built for this — warm, a little dangerous, the sort that sounds good coming out of a car window at night. The song captures something specific: that particular anticipation of a night that might go anywhere. It does what a good opening track should do, which is make you want to hear what comes next.
What comes next is "Right Place Wrong Time," and it's the EP's best moment. The bass riff that drives it lands somewhere between Franz Ferdinand and early Kasabian — that nervy, propulsive dance-rock that made 2005 feel like the most exciting year in music. Clements knows exactly what he's doing here: dry, slightly menacing verses and then a chorus that opens up like a room full of people who've been waiting all night to sing something together. The architecture is pure Max Martin — restrained and then released — and it works.
"Typhoon" pivots toward something warmer and more retro, somewhere in the territory Mark Ronson was mapping when he was making records with Amy Winehouse. There's a looseness to it, a vintage ease. Clements wears it comfortably.
Closer "Fever Dream" pulls the two best qualities of the EP into the same room — groove and atmosphere, moving together rather than taking turns. The guitar has a Coldplay-ish shimmer to it, and the whole thing builds with the patient confidence of a band that knows the payoff is coming. It's a good note to end on.
Taking Flight is an assured debut from someone who clearly knows his references and, more importantly, knows how to make them his own. The names on the production credits — Marks, Terefe, Knudsen — suggest people who can spot a future headliner. On this evidence, they spotted right.
The EP drops April 30th. Catch Clements live in London this May and June — The Troubadour on May 12th, The Half Moon in Putney on June 1st, Hope & Anchor on June 15th, and several more through the summer.