Yesterday I chanced upon Clint Michigan and was thrilled with my discovery. It's one of those happenstance moments that you come upon something unexpectantly and know immediately that that something is a bit special. I've had it from time to time in life, early R.E.M, Nick Drake, Elliott Smith, Sufjan Stevens to name a few.
Clint Michigan is probably a smaller discovery for me than those ones but nevertheless his album of a few months back Centuries is a small but notable explosion and sure to be one of my very favourite records of the year. I knew that almost immediately. It seeped its way into me on my very first listening
This is not music without precedent. It seems almost midway between the sensibility and sounds of Elliott and Sufjan, (perhaps veering too close to Sufjan on occasion for comfort), with some sprinklings of Paul Simon thrown in. It's full of warmth and weariness, reflection and consolation. Existing within the familiar but adding a few more gems to its particular chosen catalogue.
Music of course is one of the greatest consolations of all in life. Something that provides you a shoulder to lean on or an arm to support you when things seem at their most troublesome. I'd been going through a slightly difficult time for one reason or another recently, (not worth going into here), but listening through to Centuries was a palpable help in that respect, the way good art, and music particularly always is, in reminding you that you have fellow travellers.
Clint Michigan is the artistic moniker of Clint Assay, an American singer-songwriter based in Brooklyn, in his late thirties, who has clearly had issues with addiction and depression and works through them in a way that is both 'winsome and weighty', feeling like pushing yourself day by day against an ongoing wind through life, 'the same old ball and chain' of American existence, as Michigan sings in second song here Beg For It.
Michigan works his way through his issues here in the best way possible, creatively, with no little melodic deftness and lyrical acuity, one track succeeds each other, each blessed with his soft vocal delivery and supplemented by thoughtful musical arrangements and occasionally by a joint female vocalist which allows the songs to work their way towards some of the meditative calm of Leonard Cohen.
So while the ongoing struggle of Michigan's life is evidently here, so is the redemptive grace that he's achieved through working it through in song. Hopefully it's offered him some of the strength and resolve that he offers to other here. Centuries is a resourceful, troubled, but ultimately rich and graceful gift. File between Smith and Stevens, even if that doesn't make alphabetical sense. Michigan belongs here.
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