Indie-folk singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer Josienne Clarke has been a Rough Trade-signed artist and a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award-winner – two opposing poles that neatly sum up her inability to be pigeonholed. Drawing on traditional British folk inspirations, but a thoroughly modern, multifaceted artist who follows her own compass. With folk bones and modern nerve, this is stark folk and luminous indie held in clean tension.
From 2009 until 2018 she formed a duo with guitarist Ben Walker, winning a BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for best duo in 2017, and signing with music label Rough Trade Records, with whom she made six duo albums, one record with her band PicaPica and her solo record ‘In All Weather’ in 2019. She also recorded an EP ‘Such A Sky’ with jazz pianist Kit Downes in 2017. In 2019 she formed a band called PicaPica. The band recorded a studio album called Together & Apart.[1] The Financial Times wrote in 2019 she was “recognised as a rising star of British folk”.
Hand-picked as main tour support for folk legend Richard Thompson, she’s shared a stage with Robert Plant and has written songs for the National Theatre. Her varied background and effortless musicality mean a cover of Radiohead is just as likely to appear on the set list as Nick Drake. She subsequently signed with the label Corduroy Punk Records to bring out more solo albums. Of her 2023 solo album Onliness (which is a re-recording of some previous work), Folkradio wrote: “a graceful melancholy in the melodies and a bird-like fragility to her singing coating an under layer of grit and menace you would be foolish to ignore”.
Now amongst a startling and expansive catalogue of original songs, due to release her 12th studio album, Far From Nowhere Autumn 2025, this is a hit list growing weightier year upon year. Hers is a searing song craft of intimate storytelling, iron discipline, and melodies that don’t let go. Clarke’s rare authenticity is the main unifying thread running through her career, here is an artist singularly unafraid to express herself via her art and is naturally armed with all the verve and ability to do so – and bring the audience with her.
