Benjamin Clementine has shared the video for 'I Won't Complain', as directed by Craig McDean.
I Won't Complain features on the deluxe edition of Benjamin's Mercury Prize winning debut album At Least For Now and is also the soundtrack of Grammy Award-winning director Steve McQueen's new advertising campaign for Burberry.
Clementine will make his US TV debut tonight, performing the song on The Late Late Show with James Corden as he gears up for US tour dates, following 4 sold out NYC shows earlier this year. A full list of tour dates - including a night at London's Somerset House series - is below.
Released through Behind / Virgin EMI, At Least For Now has been described as a "remarkable, beyond-categorisation debut album - genuinely heart-wrenching" (Sunday Times), "a masterpiece" (Independent On Sunday) and Clementine "an extraordinary new musical talent. Incredible" (Evening Standard). The album has led to Clementine selling out five headline shows in London, including David Byrne's Meltdown Festival and St John at Hackney Church. His most recent UK tour received a plethora of rave reviews, including five-stars from the Guardian, "Nina Simone levels of resonance with his intense and elliptical songs. A rapturous show from a true original." In New York, a series of four headline shows in February 2016 sold-out in advance with a full US tour to come in June. Interviewing him for the cover feature of the New York Times T Magazine, David Byrne wrote, "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."
Clementine has packed a lot into his 27 years: heartbreak, homelessness, reinvention, before reaching cult status in Paris and returning home in unlikely circumstances to make his UK live debut on Later…With Jools Holland, since described by the BBC as "one of the greatest Jools moments of any era." Raised in London's Edmonton, his household was a strictly religious one, where children were barred from the living room unless it was a weekend dinner. When Benjamin started to teach himself the keyboard aged 11, he stumbled upon classical radio rather than contemporary pop; a sparse piano solo by Erik Satie in particular transformed the way he played. At 16 years old, in a rare moment of permitted TV watching, he caught New York avant-gardists Antony and the Johnsons performing the disarmingly naked 'Hope There's Someone' on the BBC. "I was confused, scared…it was another world," says Clementine. Further inspired by figures like Leonard Cohen and Jake Thackray - and with no emotional or employment ties to keep him in London - Benjamin absconded to Paris aged 20; sleeping rough, working in kitchens and busking out of economic necessity. This tale of two cities is enshrined in the album's key themes and artwork: blue for France and red for the UK, with Clementine caught in his 'box of stone' (a lyric from breakout track 'Cornerstone').
Tour dates:
13/05/2016 The Hall Compensa Vilnius Tickets
14/05/2016 The October Palace Kiev Tickets
19/05/2016 Stadsschouwburg Groningen Tickets
30/05/2016 Olympia Theatre Dublin Tickets
01/06/2016 Coliseu dos Recreios Lisbon Tickets
02/06/2016 Coliseu do Porto Porto Tickets
03/06/2016 Convento San Francisco Coimbra
06/06/2016 The Sinclair Boston Tickets
08/06/2016 Irving Plaza New York Tickets
12/06/2016 The Cedar Minneapolis Tickets
13/06/2016 Lincoln Hall Chicago Tickets
21/06/2016 Teragram Ballroom Los Angeles Tickets
22/06/2016 Great American Music Hall San Francisco Tickets
24/06/2016 Wonder Ballroom Portland Tickets
26/06/2016 Neumos Seattle Tickets
30/06/2016 Days Off Festival Paris Tickets
09/07/2016 Somerset House London Tickets
11/07/2016 Real Jardín Botánico Madrid Tickets
12/07/2016 Teatre Grec Barcelona Tickets
13/07/2016 Tonhalle Zurich Tickets
17/07/2016 Tempodrom Berlin