1/08/2025

CLARA MANN shares new single "Driving Home The Long Way". Debut album 'Rift' out March 7th via state51 and UK tour announced.


CLARA MANN

- Shares new single "Driving Home The Long Way"
- Debut album 'Rift' out March 7th via state51
- UK tour dates announced

Photo credit: Louise Mason


With her upcoming debut album 'Rift' out March 7th via state51, today London-based multi-disciplinary artist Clara Mann is sharing new single "Driving Home The Long Way". Mann is also set to tour later this year with headline shows in London, Bristol, Manchester & Edinburgh alongside wider performances in the UK & EU. 

On the track Mann said "I’ve always been so attached to my independence, so fiercely protective of it. I’d drive thousands of miles alone to prove that I could, that I didn’t need anyone- and then one day I just realised that I wanted to be able to let go of the wheel and not feel like everything was going to fall apart. I wanted to let someone in and not feel like I was losing part of myself, because they loved me as I was: free. 

In the end, when I’m really in love with someone, it’s because they feel both like freedom and like home in equal measure. These days, I know that I want to share the journey, because freedom doesn’t mean anything on its own, on MY own. I want to sit in the passenger seat and watch you drive, I want to feel limitless, alongside you."

"Driving Home The Long Way" on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlcLSqHYVGo
"Driving Home The Long Way" on streaming services: https://clara-mann.lnk.to/driving-home

There is a rift in the landscape, a rupture in the fabric of the sky. The distant silhouette of the city disintegrates as the ground begins to shudder and shake beneath your feet, splitting open to reveal a place that’s always been there—it just took your entire world collapsing for you to discover it.

Singer-songwriter Clara Mann’s evocative debut album navigates the fractured environment of the in-between—those liminal spaces exposed between light and dark, growth and remorse, loss and reclamation. It is a record that makes a strong case for hope, those luminescent silver linings in the dark.

Mann's music reflects the people and places that have shaped and held her—physically, emotionally, and creatively. Raised in the Lot Valley in rural France before moving to the UK for her teens, these formative years provided her with a deep sense of belonging, identity, and growth. Yet, it is in motion that Mann feels most at home: “Just the sun above me and my keys and my car." Her new record is a testament to this state of in-betweenness, inviting you to step into a place that has always existed within yourself.

After releasing her second EP Stay Open in 2022, the time and space between then and now has culminated in Rift, which vividly gestures toward the fractures and ruptures that define our lives. Yet, it is more than just an album; it captures the journey and strength it takes to look inward and to move forwards through the pain of it all. Its first track, "It Only Hurts", begins in a place of hopelessness, stemming from the loss of a relationship and, in turn, a future. It is a blank space that stretches out before you, where the landscape is torn apart like icebergs cracking and drifting. But hope remains a beacon of light throughout the album, a lighthouse guiding you across tumultuous waters. 

Influenced by artists like Jacques Brel, Edith Piaf, Judee Sill, and Tom Waits, Mann has a deep love and care for songwriting. Her lyrics are vivid and visceral, and her approach to songwriting is not one of purging emotions but rather of composting them—digesting life’s experiences and cultivating them into something meaningful, tangible, hopeful. She is also a talented visual artist, and this often plays an integral role in her songwriting process. Using the intricate and sweeping motion of illustrating with ink, charcoal, and sometimes watercolour, she can evoke thoughts and poetry onto the page, offering a way of making sense of things and to communicate in a way that words alone cannot. 

The album was primarily recorded at the 4AD Studios in London, produced and mixed by Fabian   (Martha Skye Murphy, Ex:Re, Fabiana Palladino) who carefully facilitated an imaginative space for Mann to express the playful, strange and real parts of herself. Two of the tracks, "It Only Hurts", and the title track "Rift" were both recorded in the living room studio of her friend Tom Kellett’s home in just one afternoon, with this setting mirroring the raw intimacy of these tracks. She has also previously toured with the likes of Daniel Rossen (Grizzly Bear), Billie Marten, Bill Ryder-Jones and Youth Lagoon.

For Mann, the album is a tangible expression of her entire world—a snow globe raised in her palms for the world to see, in all its layers and complexities, containing all her love, relationships, memories, and experiences. It is this sheer transparency that has allowed her to relinquish and accept all parts of herself—the guilt, pain, and beauty of it all—like “swallows in the morning air, circling the dam.” Its truthfulness is its strength, not shying away from the painful experiences of life but embracing them as essential to the human experience and as part of our tapestry. 

With Rift, Clara Mann acknowledges the cracks through which both despair and hope can seep. It is a deeply personal record, yet it is universally resonant, holding the mirror up to herself and to the world around her. It is a record that reflects on embracing our fault lines, navigating the ruptures that can erupt from them and moving forwards, in motion, with a renewed sense of self and aliveness. Mann’s debut album, Rift is all of her—her past, her present, her emotions, her experiences—and now, it is for you.

Pre-order 'Rift': https://state51.greedbag.com/buy/rift-14/
Pre-order 'Rift' Dinked Editionhttps://ffm.bio/rift

See Clara Mann live:
25th January, Dublin, Ireland, Gate Theatre - w/ Sam Amidon
1st February, Leeds, UK, Brudenell Social Club -  Back To Back Festival 
8th Febuary, Dunkirk, France – Hall de l'Hôtel de Ville de Bergues - w/ Skydaddy
22nd April - Bristol, UK - Beacon Cellars - headline
23rd April - London, UK - Stoke Newington Old Church - headline
30th April - Manchester, UK - Castle Hotel - headline
1st May - Edinburgh, UK - Voodoo Rooms - headline


Rift artwork:


Rift tracklist:
1. It Only Hurts
2. 'Til I Come Around (YouTube)
3. Driving Home The Long Way (YouTube)
4. Stadiums (YouTube)
5. Reasons
6. Remember Me (Train Song) (YouTube)
7. Doubled Over
8. Rift
9. Oranges
10. The Dream

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