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Jul 01, 2024 By Caleb Campbell Photography by Chris McKay

Northern Irish indie singer/songwriter David C Clements debuted in 2016 with his album The Longest Day in History. He has spent the years since writing and recording his follow-up, The Garden, due out later this year on September 20th. The record finds him touring through the intervening eight years, touching on moments of domesticity, tension, nostalgia, and longing. He also worked with long-time producer Michael Keeney (Foy Vance, SOAK), Jacknife Lee, and Iain Archer (Snow Patrol, Noah Kahan, James Bay) to shape the record’s warm alt folk style.

Clements returned this year with the album’s lead single, “Reckless,” and most recently, he shared a double A-side single, “Contrast” / “The Garden.” Today he’s back with an accompanying live video for “Contrast,” premiering with Under the Radar.

The studio version of “Contrast” is a soaring and dramatic effort, built atop a striking string section. In contrast, the live version of the track is stripped-back and plaintive, leaving the spotlight on Clements’ vocal performance and lyrics. Clements brings the impassioned longing in his vocals to the forefront, letting them wind through the confessional verses before taking flight with the chorus. His falsetto climbs above the insistent guitar strums, pleading “You and me, we are meant to contrast / Can’t you see I don’t want eclipse / I want the dawn.”

Clements says of the new video, “The Walled Garden is one of my favourite spots in Bangor so it was a joy to get to strip these songs back to how they were first written and get to perform them within the beautiful grounds there on a sunny spring morning. My friend Jamie Neish (Broken Film) captured the songs so well. As we walked around scouting out spots to film I couldn’t help but be drawn to the green house with its potted ferns and palms. Jamie framed the shot perfectly and I’m so happy with how it turned out, even if we were all boiled by the end of it.”

Check out the song and video below. The Garden is out on September 20th via Third Bar Records.