KATIE BROWN - 19 DEC 2021

“I didn’t like where I was and I don’t know how to be where I am, so I’ll keep spinning circles / Some strange kind of love”

If there’s one thing we’re all needing in these times, it’s space to breathe and come to terms with both where we’re at and what we’ve had to leave behind. Mutant Gifts - Live at St John’s, a project by New York ambient psych-folk musician and classically trained dancer Alison Clancy, creates exactly that space. Directed by Esteban Haga, the work is a live film of Clancy and cellist Brent Arnold performing an experimental take of Clancy’s “Mutant Gifts” at beautiful New York church St John’s in the Village, where Clancy was invited to live on campus as Artist in Residence in 2020.

Prior to taking up the residency, Clancy was Principal Dance Soloist at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in Wagner's Der Fliegende Holländer, and when the Met went dark as a result of 2020’s lockdown disruptions, she found creative refuge in the church after the residency opportunity arose. Spending hours in the stunning sanctuary late at night immersed in a world of guitars, loopers and effect pedals, it’s no surprise that her resulting work is infused with a particular kind of spiritual and existential depth.

Mutant Gifts introduces us to the interdisciplinary creative as the centrepiece of a minimal tableau, backed by an altar and religious artwork. Performing in a clean-lined black gown, the angularity of the scene is softened by the glow of gentle lighting, creating an eerily ethereal atmosphere in which Clancy and Arnold are absorbed in the soundbath they’re creating together. The piece is unhurried and spellbinding, inviting the listener in to make themselves comfortable and at home before Clancy’s whispered-style vocals add another dimension to the sonic backdrop. It’s a setting to become lost in.

A dancer demonstrates a juxtaposition of delicate refinement and beauty deceptively covering a gritty strength, and this aspect of Clancy is mirrored in Mutant Gifts: at the same time as being gentle and refreshing, the work carries a tension between darkness and lightness. There’s a brooding sense of disorientation held within it, of something brewing behind it, right from the message of Clancy’s lyrics to the tidal feel of the composition itself, with its ebb and flow represented in the cyclical guitar and the lulling drawl of the cello. As she sings, “I didn’t like where I was and I don’t know how to be where I am, so I’ll keep spinning circles / Some strange kind of love.” She’s not afraid to address the darkness of this disorientation, letting jarring, shattering moments created by clever manipulations of the interplay between mic and guitar strings weave themselves into the texture of the music to offset the ambient lull.

But from that disorientation Clancy and Arnold cleverly manage to create a refuge using all of the different elements of the song, both visual and aural. With the sense of sanctuary held in both the setting and music, the pair form a space to pause and be still without having to hurry on; a space for rest and honest reflection before continuing onward in the journey towards reorientation.

Watch Mutant Gifts - Live at St John’s below.

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