Connecticut-based musician and singer-songwriter Marin Clarisse has all the makings of an artist poised to blow up the moment she finds her audience. Like Sarah Kinsley or Maisie Peters, two artists whom she looks up to for both artistic and personal inspiration, her music effuses an anthemic pop confessionalism that breaks free of pesky genre constraints.
Clarisse first discovered her musical side as an adolescent: a classically trained violinist and pianist, she was nine years old when she tried creating original pieces. After receiving a yellow journal at the age of 11, she decided to finally answer that voice inside of her that was urging her to write, and soon, she was penning lyrics for the music she composed.
By the time she’d entered high school, it had become an outlet, one that offered both “comfort and inspiration.” She also started spending more time in front of the upright piano that sat in the underlit basement of her childhood home. Where she could cloister herself from distractions and focus on putting into words and melodies everything she was feeling and experiencing: “This was my escape from daily stressors and a place I called my own,” Clarisse explained in an email.
As an 18-year-old who has just finished their first year away at college, music has become less of a getaway. “Now, I write music to connect. Connect with myself, with other songwriters, and with listeners,” Clarisse revealed. “I hope that listeners are able to find a piece of my song, whether it be one line or a chord progression, that resonates with them and are able to listen to it during their daily routine.”
The sentiment brings her somewhat full circle—back to one of her very first performances of an original piece of music. “I remember the first song I performed for my family,” she recalls. “Which was a Japanese song about how ‘families don’t fight’ when they were bickering over something.”
Both of the singles Clarisse has shared since December of last year bear a similar desire to smooth over not just her own internal roilings but also those of others. In “Growing, Painfully,” she delicately and poignantly traces the immense changes of young adulthood—shifting friendships and romances that occur in tandem with geographical relocations—her ghostly, earnest voice a layer of gossamer over the song’s resonant piano keys.
“True, True Love?” arrived just this month and fills her previously spacious soundscape with a jumpy rhythm of elastic beats and electro-pop effervescence, evoking Kinsley or even Clairo with its anxiously driving energy. Here, she tackles the anxiety of a newly formed relationship, wandering frantically through the headrush of pining intimacy and fears that it’s all just a one-sided infatuation.
“I’ve seen myself go through them, and a lot of my friends as well, but the uneasy feelings that arise when you’re falling for them but you don’t know if they feel the same, is something I haven’t been able to express until now,” Clarisse said. “I like to tell people that this is a song for ‘when you don’t know if they’re the love of your life or the worst situationship you’ll ever be in.’ My brother (my producer) and I also wanted to experiment with a more summer pop-y sound, and I think it sounds great for our first pop song.”
She might only have two singles out, but mark our words—she’s going down a similarly illustrious path as her contemporaries if her ethereally voiced, intimate lyricism—woven between sparse piano ballads and buoyant, beat-driven tracks—is anything to go by.
ARTISTS YOU SHOULD KNOW
BEST NEW MUSIC
Words: Steven Ward
Visit Marin Clarisse on her website and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
This post may contain affiliate links. Ads and affiliate links are how independent blogs like Grimy Goods can operate. Thank you for supporting our work and being a part of our music community.
